Analilia Mejia will win a special election in New Jersey’s 11th District, CNN’s Decision Desk projects, allowing Democrats to further narrow Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the US House.
Mejia will defeat Republican Joe Hathaway, a member of the Randolph Township council. She will fill the remainder of the term for the seat Mikie Sherrill vacated after being elected New Jersey governor in November.
After winning a crowded primary in February, Mejia was heavily favored in a district where there are about 65,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, according to the state’s Department of Elections. Mejia united most of the Democratic Party behind her, including former Rep. Tom Malinowski, who ran in the primary and lost after facing a barrage of spending from a group linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
I don’t think that’s actually been a real issue. While Johnson waited some 3-4 weeks to swear in Grijalva around the recent shutdown, congress was technically in recess the whole time. While it’s kinda a jerk move, the moment he finally called back congress into session he did swear her in. So nothing was voted on or done inbetween her being eligible to be sworn in and when she was actually sworn in.
He did keep congress in recess for a long time to hold up passing the bill on the epstein file release (as Grijalva was a critical vote on that), but it didn’t really change anything.