February 10, 2026

Analilia Mejia Wins Democratic Nomination for NJ-11 Special Election

For the full link to the livestream with English and Spanish remarks, click here.

“NJ-11 voters have spoken, and they have made it clear that they want a candidate free from the stranglehold of big money, who will center people first—not MAGA, not Trump.”

This included Make the Road Action New Jersey, the Working Families Party, 32BJ SEIU, CWA District 1, AAUP-AFT, Popular Democracy, and the voters of NJ-11 who believed in this campaign.

For the full livestream link with remarks from all the speakers in English and Spanish, along with Q&A from Analilia Mejia, click here.

Full transcribed prepared speech from Analilia Mejia:

First and foremost, I want to say — hello, New Jersey!

I am so excited to say we did it! We really did do it, y’all.

Before I go on, I want to say thank you to all of the organizations, the volunteers, and the community leaders who stepped up at this moment — who picked up the phone when I called and said, “I think I’m going to do this thing.” The tremendous support I received from my union family (32BJ, 1199, CIR, CWA AFT), my movement family (WFP, Make the Road Action) Popular Democracy — organizations I feel so proud to have worked with over the 25 years I’ve been working across NJ and across the country to center the needs of working class, working poor, and middle class families.

The lesson from this race is that people power can win, and we can do it in 10 weeks. I keep saying this because when I first jumped in, it was the week before Thanksgiving, when it was announced that we had just a few days during the holiday to collect the signatures we needed and get on the ballot. We were able to get three times the number of signatures because of volunteers who mobilized — people were collecting signatures during Thanksgiving dinner!

In 10 weeks, we built a campaign that others took months to assemble. In New Jersey, we have tremendously dedicated, tremendously talented, tremendously committed movement leaders. This is not a race in which one individual won; this is a race in which the community stepped up and said, "What we want are real representatives who will listen to the people, who will ask questions about what is keeping you up at night, who will prioritize your interests over special interests."

I thank you, and I thank all the voters in NJ-11 who put their faith in this campaign.

I commit now and forever to representing every voice in NJ’s 11th congressional district. I have lived in my community for 13 years. I have taken the time to meet my neighbors, to talk to them at drop-off and while we watch our children play sports. I ask them questions: How are you feeling about the economy? How are you handling the cost-of-living increase? What are you going to do about your healthcare now that it has doubled and tripled?

And my neighbors let me know what’s happening.

You see, people will say this isn’t a district that a progressive can win. But this isn’t about left/right; it’s about right and wrong. So when I speak to my neighbors about how we increasingly feel the pinch, about how a zip code doesn’t protect us from rising violent authoritarianism, my neighbors respond just like I do. Because we live here, and we know that we chose to live in NJ-11 because we desire to live in a community where we can raise our families with justice and equity and diversity. Many of our families stretch to be here – we seek the infrastructure to commute into the city, we seek the schools to educate our children, and we fight for decency at every moment. That’s what NJ-11 is about. That’s what this campaign was about, that’s what I’ve dedicated myself to for 25 years, and that’s what I’ll continue to do with all of your help.

I think you’ve heard me say over and over that I’m an organizer – and now I can’t wait to be your elected representative. So we’re going to do the same thing we've done over the last ten weeks to bring it home.

I want to set the record straight: for ten weeks, we knew we were behind. We didn’t have the infrastructure the machinery would provide, and we didn’t have the millions of dollars our opponents had. We knew we would be outspent 10-1.

What I knew we had was the ability to organize. We would be the hardest-working people this race had ever seen. You could find us at 6 am speaking to voters, at a grocery store talking to voters, or on the doors and on the phones incessantly. Because that is how you win; in fact, that is how you will rebuild our democracy. Because what we are hungry for is an America that sees all of us as human.

That’s what we’re going to fight to be able to instill in the next 10 weeks; that’s what we fought to instill over the last 10 weeks, and it’s what we fought for together.

I would be remiss to say that these amazing people made 300,000 phone calls. Over 1,200 volunteers mobilized to knock on over 10,000 doors. We raised $600,000 - and we raised it by talking to people, by asking our neighbors to contribute. The majority of our donations were under $100. That’s how we rebuild our democracy, a participatory democracy: asking people to step up, asking people to own their role in self-governance, and asking people to demand the most from our leaders.

I know I’ve heard over and over that AIPAC overplayed their hand in this race. I keep saying that leopards will eat your face. The truth is, when we jumped into this race, we said we were not going to take AIPAC or corporate money or the bundled millions from lobbyists. And it is not because we are anti-corporation – I have a 401k like many of you – and it is not because we reject an entire community. We believe in humanity and justice for all. I know that antisemitism, islamaphobia, anti-Blackness, and misogyny are all cut from the same cloth. They’re all undergirded by a belief that some people are not human and are not worthy of protection. I reject this wholesale, now and forever.

We rejected those interests because we know they often seek to silence questions, concerns, and the voices of the people. That should not have a place in our democracy. I think it’s horrendous what AIPAC tried to do in this race. I think it is part of their brand to misconstrue facts, confuse voters, and create division just to get what they have explicitly stated they want: a blank, unquestioning submission. Our democracy should not function that way; representatives should first listen to the people and always prioritize them.

So while they did play a role in this race — confusing, rejecting, misinterpreting — what they didn’t do is win this for us. We won it through the people's power. We won it by talking to folks. We won it by knocking on doors. We won it by being ready at every moment.

Q&A

We've heard you talk a lot about affordability and healthcare costs, and we’ve also seen supporters holding "Abolish ICE" signs. What is your message to moderate or perhaps persuadable Republican voters?

First and foremost, this is happening on both sides of the aisle. When it comes to affordability, we need to tackle the issue from both ends. One, I think that we should put more money in people’s pockets. That means raising the minimum wage, not taxing the first $40k in income, so that working-class families can have a little more economic stability. That’s something that would benefit not just Republicans or Democrats - that would benefit every single family in this district.

Two, we can see plain as day that our economy is increasingly monopolized by a handful of corporations that jack up prices and make it impossible for everyone to make ends meet, regardless of your political inclinations. That’s why we’re fighting against private equity firms buying up starter homes: our children will be unable to start by buying a home or even renting.

We know that we have to take control of rising healthcare costs. I am a proponent of Medicare for All, as you all know. At this moment, the American people need to be free of the stranglehold that big corporations have on our daily existence. There’s a reason why prices go up and we’re unable to go up — it’s monopolies.

How does that connect to a vibrant democracy? As long as lobbyists, corporate interests, dark money, and big massive spending are flooding our democratic process, our elected officials are completely unable to make decisions that prioritize their constituents, and instead, they have to focus on whether or not they’re going to be punished by millions of dollars of spending.

The way in which we free ourselves from this stranglehold is by rejecting it fully, naming it and denouncing it right now. I contend that AIPAC did all of the voters in New Jersey an incredible favor because they told us who are they are and what they’re willing to do — and that is to subvert democracy and silence even their friends if they don’t have a blank check. We must reject this.

What should happen with ICE?

This is critical and important. We talk about abolishing ICE, but this is actually what we’re talking about. One: we have to turn off the spigot. We cannot continue to fund an entity that is completely out of control.

Two: we must claw back the $75 billion that was stolen from the American people — from the elderly, from the children. It is unconscionable that we would take money, take food out of people’s mouths — all in order to fund a rogue police force that is turning its weapons against the American people.

Three: We must stop the data collection and surveillance. What happened to Mr. Pretti — we must remember that the officer who shot and killed him was holding a phone and a camera with one hand and unholstering their gun with another. ICE and DHS are collecting data on individuals who have the audacity to exert their constitutional rights. They’re collecting our data, stopping individuals, taking pictures of our drivers licenses, and not sharing information on how they’re going to weaponize that information. That must stop.

Four: qualified immunity is the reason why ICE agents are acting with impunity. So in order for us to get control and ensure that we have safety in our streets for all people, we must abolish ICE. We must turn off the spigot, we must stop the data collection, we must stop the immunity, we must have accountability, that does not mean a nonexistent system - because guess what, we’re a nation of immigrants, and in order to bring people into the fabric of this nation, we need to have a fair process. But it must be free of violence, of surveillance, and it must uphold our constitutional rights.

AIPAC showed its face in the election. How are you feeling going into April? Are you concerned about further spending from AIPAC and other dark money organizations influencing the election?

Across this country, what we’re seeing is individuals who are willing to trade our democracy in order to gain complete control of our democracy and of our lives. In order to protect our democracy, it should be one individual, one voice. It should not be the flooding of our electoral system, it should not be the subverting of facts.

The bottom line is that Citizens United has led to this moment, and in order for us to course correct, it is more than just rejecting AIPAC — although I call on every representative, every Democrat, every Republican to reject them because they have shown us what they are willing to do to friend or foe.

In terms of our Supreme Court, it is plain as day that our court has been corrupted by big money interests who send our Justices on trips and engage in who knows what in the background. In order for us to course correct, we also need to take a look at our Supreme Court, we need to have reforms that hold our justices accountable. And if necessary, when found egregiously corrupt, we should move to impeach justices who are working against the American people.

There has been a lot of talk about unity, since the close results of the election indicate a bit of a divided base. What assurances and overtures are you planning to make to supporters of your closest rival in the primary and looking ahead to the general election, and what assurances are you going to make to independent voters and those not in the party to bring them into the fold.

What voters in NJ-11 will find about myself and candidates who are free from the stranglehold of big money, of corporate interests, and of all those lobbyists is that we will center the people first. The assurances that I give my future constituents are the same as those that I gave all of you for the past 25 years and that is: we should be focused on the facts. We should be building policies that are responsive to the needs of the people. People wake up in the middle of the night worried about the cost of living, about how they’re going to take care of their children, about whether if they step outside they’re going to be tackled and manhandled or have their constitutional rights trampled upon.

We need to center the needs of individuals. The job of a member of congress is to represent, and so that is my complete intention. I am proud to have gotten the support of Tom Malinowski, of Brendan Gill, of Cammie Croft, of many of my recent opponents because we share the belief that our government is for the people and by the people and that’s what you’re going to get from me.

In Malinowski’s statement, he mentioned that at the end of the campaign asking if he was for ICE and Trump, which was clearly a result of the attack on him by AIPAC. You were an indirect beneficiary of their attacks.

Here’s what I was a beneficiary of: we knocked on 10,000 doors. We called 300,000 people. My friends, family, and neighbors helped define me as a candidate. By that theory, the AIPAC backed candidate would have won if that was the case. Here’s the bottom line, again: the way we have a vibrant democracy is by centering people. It’s by knocking on doors, talking to individuals. It’s not by flooding mailboxes with a bunch of voters or negative ads that confuse a bunch of people. See, I could have just been defined as the Bernie Bro, but instead we did the work. We did the hard work of connecting with people and making sure they understood that we not only had the skills and the experience and the relationships to lead, but that we would lead with integrity. That we would listen to the community, that we would not be bought, that we would not be bossed - and I think that’s what won the day.