Joe Hathaway Courts Democrats in NJ-11 Special Election

Joe Hathaway wants you to kick the tires.

The Republican candidate in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District special election put it plainly Wednesday night after a meet-and-greet in Madison: “They can test drive a Republican if they want.” About 70 people showed up to the Morris County event, and Hathaway made his pitch to a crowd that didn’t need convincing. The voters he actually needs are in rooms like the ones he’s been booking in Maplewood, Montclair, and South Orange.

That’s where it gets interesting.

Hathaway said he’s held town halls in those Democratic strongholds with “not a Republican in sight,” and he believes some of those voters might actually cross over on April 16. The logic: if they don’t like what they get, they can vote him out in November. The special election fills former Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s old 11th District seat only through the end of the current Congress. A second race in November will fill the seat starting in 2027. Two bites at the apple.

The math here is not subtle. CD-11 leans Democratic by more than 60,000 registered voters. Hathaway can’t win on Republican turnout alone. Full stop.

So his strategy rests almost entirely on making the case that Democratic nominee Analilia Mejia is too far left for a district that is, by most measures, suburban and comfortable. Mejia, a Bernie Sanders supporter, has drawn Hathaway’s sharpest attacks on her positions around health care, government spending, and especially Israel. She has called Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal,” a statement Hathaway keeps returning to on the trail.

He told reporters Wednesday that Mejia’s rhetoric toward Israel puts Jewish residents of the district and state at genuine risk. His argument, bluntly stated: that kind of language emboldens “maniacs” to do things like throw Molotov cocktails through synagogue windows. Mejia, for her part, has said she opposes antisemitism and feels a personal connection to Jewish communities facing threats in the U.S. Hathaway isn’t buying it.

On the experience question, he’s also been direct. Hathaway serves as a municipal official in Randolph, and he’s leaned into that resume hard. His pitch is that local government teaches you how to fix an actual road, work across the aisle, and get something done without a press release. Mejia has no elected government experience, and he says that matters.

Still. The structural picture for Republicans in this race is rough.

Democrats have run well in special elections across the country, and CD-11 hasn’t bucked that trend historically. Hathaway knows this. But he’s framing the April 16 vote as a national signal, the first real data point of the midterm cycle. A Republican win here, he said, would “reverberate throughout the country.” A Mejia win, he argued, would be a troubling marker for where the left is heading.

That framing is doing a lot of work for a candidate who needs Democratic votes to survive the week.

InsiderNJ first reported on the Madison event and Hathaway’s comments to reporters.

The special election is April 16. Whatever happens, New Jersey does it all again in November.