Filing day for New Jersey’s 2026
congressional elections is still more than six months away, but a
striking disparity has begun to develop in who is – and isn’t –
launching campaigns to run.
As of today, 21 non-incumbent
candidates have announced campaigns for the U.S. House of
Representatives in New Jersey. Of those 21, 18 are Democrats while
just three are Republicans, a sharp difference that could be a sign
of a Democratic enthusiasm edge under President Donald Trump’s
second administration.
“Democrats smell opportunity,”
said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for
New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “And recruitment is the
first leading trend that you have of what candidates believe is
going to be their party’s chances. Whether a party has to pull
teeth, or has candidates coming out at the seams, I think tells you
a lot about what they perceive as their chances.”
By far the most crowded primary
on either side of the aisle is in the closely divided 7th district,
where no fewer than eight Democrats – most of them running serious,
well-funded campaigns – are looking to take on Rep. Tom Kean Jr.
(R-Westfield). New Jersey’s two other Republican-held districts are
much more conservative, but both of them also have contested
Democratic primaries: four Democrats are running against 2nd
district Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and two Democrats are
running against 4th district Rep. Chris Smith
(R-Manchester).
Two veteran incumbent Democratic
representatives have also drawn primary challenges: two Democrats
are seeking to unseat Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) in the 6th
district, and one newcomer is taking on Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman
(D-Ewing) in the 12th.
Finally, there’s the 11th
district, which will remain in
limbo until Rep. Mikie
Sherrill (D-Montclair) either wins or loses this November’s
gubernatorial election. If Sherrill wins, the special election to
replace her will surely draw a crowded field, but even if she loses
and runs for re-election to the House next year, fellow Democrat
Anna Lee Williams has said she’ll continue her campaign
regardless.
On the Republican side,
meanwhile, only Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon)’s competitive 9th
district has a contested primary, with two Republicans running. One
Republican is also campaigning for the 3rd district against Rep.
Herb Conaway (D-Delran).
The other seven districts have
drawn zero Republican candidates whatsoever thus far. That includes
theoretically competitive seats like the 5th, 6th, and 11th
districts, all of which voted for Kamala Harris by single-digit
margins last year; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly)’s 5th district
came just a few thousand votes away from supporting Trump, but his
one declared GOP opponent dropped out of the
race this
summer.
(These totals don’t count the
small number of candidates who have filed fundraising paperwork but
who have no visible campaign presence and haven’t responded to the
New Jersey Globe’s requests for comment.)
Of course, not every candidate
who declares a campaign is in fact a serious contender, something
that will become clearer after 3rd quarter fundraising reports are
available in October. In the 2nd quarter, though, several
non-incumbent Democratic candidates in the 2nd and 7th districts
raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, a feat
that the two non-incumbent Republicans who filed reports that
quarter came nowhere close to matching.
It’s likely that, by the time
the March 2026 filing deadline arrives, both parties will have
candidates running in every district. No New Jersey congressional
race has gone uncontested by one of the two major parties since
Republicans failed to field a candidate in the solidly blue 10th
district in 2008; even when no one files ahead of the primary, it’s
not terribly difficult to get the few hundred write-in votes needed
to make the general election ballot, which is what Republican
candidate Christian Onuoha did in the 2020 race for the
6th district.
But candidates who arrive on the
scene at the last minute are usually less formidable than those who
had been recruited months earlier, and they also have far less time
to build up serious campaigns and raise money ahead of November
2026.
“There’s a difference between
getting your A-Team and getting your B-Team,” Rasmussen said. “When
your best candidates are champing at the bit and lining up, and are
getting out early, then that’s where recruitment really tells a
story.”
New Jersey’s most recent midterm
provides some evidence for that theory. In 2022, with Republicans
energized to fight back against then-President Joe Biden, 34
non-incumbent Republicans filed to run for Congress, including
seven in the 7th district alone; they were joined by just 11
non-incumbent Democrats, even though the one open seat that year
was held by a Democrat (retiring Rep. Albio Sires).
Indeed, that year ended up being
strong for the GOP – Kean flipped the 7th district as Republicans
won control of the House – though the party didn’t reach its most
optimistic goals, in part because of a new congressional map that
limited their opportunities.
Candidate filings from the 2018
midterms paint less of a clear picture: 21 non-incumbent Democrats
and 21 non-incumbent Republicans filed to run for Congress ahead of
a blue wave election year that saw Democrats flip four New Jersey
House seats, fully one-third of the delegation.
There are a couple of asterisks
to that statistic, however. Two Republican congressmen retired that
year, prompting crowded primary fields to replace them; in several
Democratic primaries, meanwhile, early party endorsements for
eventual victors Andy Kim, Tom Malinowski, and Mikie Sherrill
dissuaded many other contenders from filing to run in the primary,
winnowing down previously crowded contests.
The comparison to past years
isn’t a perfect one, since they reflect candidates who
filed versus candidates who ran.
Between now and March, it’s inevitable that many more 2026
candidates will launch campaigns, and a few candidates who are
currently running will end theirs.
But Rasmussen said that, given
the typical dynamics of midterm elections and Trump’s controversial
moves as president, it makes sense that Democrats would be showing
more early enthusiasm. “It’s not a surprise that the assessment of
potential candidates is that, for Democrats, this is a year to
think about running,” he said. “For Republicans, maybe not so
much.”
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running for Congress next year. What might that mean? appeared
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