A dozen Democrats competing in 11th Congressional District special election

In the hushed interlude between the thunder of a general election and the coming storms of the next presidential race, a quieter but no less consequential contest is unfolding in the suburbs of northern New Jersey.

The departure of Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill has created a sudden vacancy in the 11th Congressional District, triggering a compressed special election that has drawn a full dozen Democrats into a fray of remarkable diversity.

They present themselves as mayors and mothers, former diplomats and first-time candidates, engineers and activists, each arguing they possess the right formula to represent a district that has become a national bellwether.

The contenders, in alphabetical order, are: John Bartlett, a Passaic County Commissioner; Zach Beecher, a businessman and Army veteran; J-L Cauvin, a lawyer and comedian; Cammie Croft, a clean energy advocate and Obama administration alum; Dean Dafis, a Maplewood Councilman; Brendan Gill, an Essex County Commissioner; Jeff Grayzel, Mayor of Morris Township; Tom Malinowski, a former congressman and diplomat; Analilia Mejia, a grassroots organizer; Justin Strickland, a Chatham Borough Councilman and veteran; Tahesha Way, the Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey; and Anna Lee Williams, a community activist.

Based on their detailed submissions to the Morris County Democratic Committee, these candidates are offering voters not merely a choice of personalities, but a fundamental decision about the nature of representation itself.

It is a primary that functions as a living referendum on two competing philosophies of power.

On one side stands a cadre of seasoned officials—a former Assistant Secretary of State, a sitting Lieutenant Governor, multi-term mayors and commissioners—who tout a deep familiarity with the levers of government as the essential tool for delivering results.

Their case is built on a foundation of granular, local achievement.

Commissioner John Bartlett cites a precise figure—“over $960 million” secured for district infrastructure. Mayor Jeff Grayzel, an engineer, references his 13 patents.

Their language is that of mechanics: leveraging relationships, navigating grant applications, and delivering tangible returns.

Arrayed against them are the dreamers and disruptors.

Their power derives not from a list of secured appropriations, but from personal narrative and a palpable fury at a status quo they view as corrupt and broken.

Analilia Mejia, a longtime labor organizer, declares bluntly that “plain old ‘blue no matter who’ won’t do.” Lawyer and comedian J-L Cauvin frames his policy through the lens of his mother, who cannot visit him because she cannot navigate the gap at his outdated train station.

Army veteran Zach Beecher condemns recent Democratic healthcare negotiations as a tactical failure where soldiers don’t get points for “almost” securing the objective.

For these candidates, a résumé inside the system is not an asset, but a potential liability.

Yet, for all this stark divergence in political identity, the questionnaires reveal islands of stark unanimity, forged in the concrete needs of the district.

The Gateway Tunnel project is the universal litmus test, a rare piece of machinery everyone agrees must be saved. Every candidate names it as a non-negotiable federal priority, with Mejia specifically pledging to “stop Trump from stealing these funds,” while others vow to “firewall” its funding from political retribution.

Similarly, in their approaches to the district’s significant immigrant communities, personal history often bridges the insider-outsider divide, leading to shared support for state Trust Acts and pathways to legal status, even as their methods—bureaucratic roundtables versus movement-driven advocacy—differ.

Nowhere is the core philosophical fault line more exposed than on healthcare. While all pledge to defend the Affordable Care Act and fight Medicaid cuts, the visions for the future splinter dramatically.

The experienced hands, like Bartlett and Grayzel, advocate for a public option—a pragmatic expansion of the existing framework.

The disruptors, like Croft and Williams, speak explicitly of the “human right” to universal healthcare, framing the current fight as a defensive holding action on the way to a more transformative system.

It is the clearest policy expression of their core disagreement: fix the machine, or build a new one?

This dichotomy extends to the raw mechanics of the campaign itself. In a sharp break from past norms, a near-universal pledge to refuse corporate PAC money is the great unifier, a required sacrament in today’s Democratic politics.

But behind that, strategies diverge.

The mechanics highlight early cash-on-hand figures and detailed field plans targeting high-propensity voters.

Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way highlights institutional support from groups like the Congressional Black Caucus PAC. The grassroots campaigns dismiss the necessity of this traditional model.

Williams boasts a fully volunteer staff that collected over 1,000 petition signatures in four days, arguing that “true engagement” is something “money cannot buy.”

Strickland relies on a team of unpaid volunteers, believing a focus on direct community connection will outweigh financial disadvantage.

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski has been accused of carpetbagging, but he also has comes to the contest with heavy baggage.

If Malinowski returns to Congress, an unresolved House Ethics Committee review into his past stock disclosures could await him. The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint after Malinowski failed to file timely reports for over 100 stock trades between 2019-2021, potentially involving up to $5 million in value, many related to COVID-19 response.

The voters of the 11th District are thus presented with a choice that mirrors a national Democratic quandary, compressed into a nine-week winter sprint.

Do they send a mechanic to Washington—a figure like Bartlett or Gill, who can recite the chapter and verse of the county budget and promises to master the federal code to protect what the district has? Or is the moment too dire for maintenance?

Julie Roginsky, the principal strategist behind Gov. Phil Murphy’s 2017 primary victory, accused Gill, who was the campaign manager, “of rank misogyny” but she was fired in July 2017.

Roginsky said that Gill called her the c-word during one conversation, and used “explicit, misogynistic language to refer to me that would have automatically gotten him fired from any other organization.”

“Referring to me the way you have in this email smacks of rank misogyny, if nothing else — exactly the same kind of misogyny you exhibited towards me on the phone,” Roginsky wrote to Gill on July 17, 2017. “I know, from other women on the campaign, that I am not alone in having you speak to me inappropriately.”

Does it demand a dreamer like Croft or Cauvin, who looks at the same machinery and sees not a tool to be wielded, but an obstacle to be dismantled in the name of a more affordable, equitable future?

The candidates have, in their own words, provided the blueprint for both visions.

The coming vote will be a stark and telling referendum on which set of instructions the Democrats of New Jersey’s 11th District believe contains the right wisdom for these peculiar and pressing times.