Elections answer questions - like who won?

Before we get there, there are always intriguing questions before an election. Here are some of them relative to Thursday's special primary in CD-11.

Will strong support in Essex County carry Brendan Gill to victory?  The Essex Commissioner and veteran activist has been endorsed by ... Well, wait. It may be easier to identify the Essex officials who have not endorsed him. You get the picture. Those endorsing Gill begin with Phil Murphy, Joe DiVincenzo, the county exec, and LeRoy Jones, the state Democratic chair. And they continue down to dozens of local mayors and council members throughout Essex. All this is nice, but you always have to wonder if voters truly care who an obscure, relatively speaking, Roseland official backs for Congress? For the curious, the list of all those endorsing Gill can be found on his website.

Speaking of endorsements, do voters care if national figures endorse a local congressional candidate?  Analilia Mejia has to hope so. Bernie Sanders was in Wayne on her behalf last month. Liberal Rep. Ro Khanna of California came up from D.C. on Monday to sing her praises at a restaurant in Parsippany. She also is getting support from Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the House Progressive Caucus. Mejia, clearly, has established herself as the most liberal candidate in the race. In a Democratic primary, that can be a pretty wide lane. Then again, a whole bunch of voters may not even know who Jayapal is. Everyone does not watch MS NOW, you know.

Will the fierce, anti-Tom Malinowski ads pay off? Dismayed by a perceived lack of unconditional support of Israel, AIPAC - the American Israel Public Affairs Committee - is running an ad campaign attacking Malinowski not for his stance on Israel, but for such things as supporting ICE. The charge is simply false, but as we know, false ads can work. The attack ads seem to be overshadowing what some thought as Malinowski's biggest liability going into the race - his refusal to run in CD-7, the neighboring district that he represented in Congress for four years. The Jewish Insider, a digital news outlet covering politics and Israeli affairs, called AIPAC's involvement a "potentially risky move."

On the other side of the ad equation, stands Tahesha Way, the former lieutenant governor. She is getting ad support from a pro-Israel PAC. The ads focus on her standing up to Donald Trump in regard to expanding mail-in voting when she was LG. One drawback is that Way hails from Passaic County, which makes up a very small part of a district that is mostly Morris and Essex. Is it possible to win if your home base is so much smaller than your opponents?

There are seven other candidates in the race. All deserve credit for stepping up. Running for Congress is not easy, especially when the election is the first week of February. A legitimate question is, whether any of them will surprise and actually be in the conversation when results start coming in Thursday night? If so, it would be quite the upset.

Finally, how's Joe Hathaway going to do? We know he's going to win as the only Republican on the ballot. But how many votes will he get? That will be one way to gauge GOP voter interest in the wake of last fall's disappointing election for Republicans. For the record, the district has about 226,000 registered Democrats and 164,000 registered Republicans.

This was on the mind of Laura Ali, the Morris County Republican Chair. Here is part of her message on the election:

"Unity vs. Division: We are united behind one candidate - Joe Hathaway. The Dems are not. Dems that lose tomorrow, can automatically refile to run in the June Primary. This will lead to a great deal of confusion and division amongst the Democrats. Because we have unified behind Joe, we have an advantage."

The reference to the filing deadline for the June primary is interesting - it's in late March. That means candidates will file to run in the CD-11 June primary about three weeks before the April 16 election to fill the seat through the end of 2026. Confusion indeed.