By: Nedia Morsy, Make the Road Action New Jersey, and Maegan Llerena, Make the Road Action

As Analilia Mejia takes a victory lap in New Jersey’s 11th congressional district, her stunning win – first, a massive upset in February’s primary special election and then, a resounding win in this week’s general – can teach us a lot as we head into the midterms.  For Mejia, a bold, pro-immigrant platform combined with deep attention to pocket book issues made for winning kitchen table politics.

Mejia – the daughter of Colombian and Dominican immigrants and a former labor organizer – powerfully wove together concerns around Trump’s cuts to health care and the spikes in cost of living with the administration’s attacks on immigrants. She made immigration part of a kitchen table platform by forcefully asking the question: while constituents across the district are about to lose their Obamacare subsidies and child care, why is the Trump administration spending billions on a masked paramilitary and on Big Tech contracts to separate families and abduct our neighbors? She called for the abolition of ICE and tied it to a vision of a United States that every family can afford. In short - don’t spend billions on masked ICE agents while our families struggle to make ends meet right here in suburban New Jersey.

New Jersey’s 11th congressional district is not a bastion of progressivism by any stretch.  The seat was held by a Republican for decades. And for as long as we can remember winning candidates on both sides of the aisle ran, and won, by antagonizing immigrants. During the 2000s, a 287(g) agreement was in place in this district that allowed police to actively collude with ICE. Even the former representative in the district, currently Governor Mikie Sherrill, took a moderate stance on immigration throughout her tenure, voting to increase ICE’s budget and in favor of restrictive immigration laws.

So the fact that Mejia –  running on an abolish ICE platform – won the general election in a historically moderate district with higher margins than Sherrill, Harris and Biden presents the clearest electoral picture to date of how far the voters have moved to support candidates who are militantly pro-immigrant and anti-ICE – and, importantly, candidates that can connect with voters on affordability. A national poll from earlier this year found that a whopping 93% of Democrats believe ICE has gone too far. 73% of Democrats support abolishing ICE. For comparison’s sake, only around 55% of Democrats supported abolishing ICE in 2019.  For too long, consultants have instructed Democratic candidates to avoid the topic of immigration. But Mejia’s winning pro-immigrant platform – and the way she connected it to economic issues - demands we revisit this advice – and urgently.

We spoke with thousands of voters in the 11th district on their front porches, in their homes and over the phone. One Latina voter we spoke with while knocking on doors in Belleville shared that despite being a U.S. citizen, she was afraid ICE might arrest her because of her accent. She felt Mejia was the only candidate that would fight for her in Washington. A Bloomfield Republican woman had only voted for Republicans for the past twenty years, until she feared losing her SNAP benefits under Trump. When she stopped to speak with Mejia on a downtown streetcorner, she was impressed with how Mejia listened to her story and promised to fight for her. Mejia’s campaign brought back wide swaths of the Democratic coalition back to the polls: working class Latinos, upper middle class voters, young people because she positioned herself as a person that could fight for them on a host of issues.

Not only is Mejia’s vision one that helps win elections – it is also one that Democrats can act on if they take back power. Accountability for ICE is only part of the solution. We need a stable immigration system that guarantees rights and protections, strengthens our shared economic and civic life, lifts wages, and counters corporate exploitation.

Today, voters are witnessing a heinous alternative: executions of U.S. citizens and immigrants, looming cuts to health care and SNAP, and Big Tech billionaires growing influence in our government. With her pro-immigrant platform and a vision for a country that everyone can afford, Mejia’s victory came with a clear message for Democrats: fight back against attacks on our communities or lose.

Make the Road Action builds political power rooted in working-class Latinx communities, promotes policy solutions that improve the lives of all working-class and low-income people, and strengthens the movement for justice through electoral and grassroots organizing to advance progressive political and policy change.

Nedia Morsy is the Director for Make the Road Action New Jersey.

Maegan Llerena is the Co-Executive Director for Make the Road Action.