Analilia Mejia, a progressive activist who has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, won the special election in New Jersey on Thursday evening for the U.S. House of Representatives seat vacated by Mikie Sherrill, who was elected state governor in November.

With 94% of the votes counted, the J Street-endorsed Mejia received 77,856 votes (59.5%) while her Republican opponent, Joe Hathaway, former mayor of Randolph, N.J., garnered 52,324 votes (40%) in the special election for the state’s 11th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press.

Hathaway conceded the election on Thursday evening.

Mejia, whom Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) backed, defeated former congressman Tom Malinowski, who had been considered the favorite, in the February primary for the seat. The United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent $2.3 million on negative advertising against Malinowski.

On April 10, Mejia stated that “Congress must end the blank check for Trump and Netanyahu. The United States must include Lebanon in a real ceasefire and stop giving Israel a blank check to escalate.” She also said that she was honored to receive J Street’s endorsement and that “we can and must be critical of the Israeli government, call out the war crimes committed by Netanyahu and stand with Palestinian communities in their pursuit of peace and dignity.”

In August 2024, she stated that Kamala Harris’s campaign for president “fails her by being so shortsighted” by not offering a platform to a single Palestinian at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “Over the last 10 months, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel,” she claimed at the time. Democratic leaders “inexplicably refused to offer the voices of hundreds of thousands of impacted Palestinians five minutes out of over 72,0000,” she stated.

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