Driving the news: The 13-candidate Democratic primary to replace now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey's 11th congressional district ended in a dead heat between progressive organizer Analilia Mejia and former Rep. Tom Malinowski. With several thousand provisional and late mail-in still to be counted as of Friday, Mejia led Malinowski by 500 votes, 28.75% to 27.97%, according to the Associated Press. Mejia trailed many of her opponents in fundraising, bringing in just $420,000 to Malinowski's $1.2 million.
Wiener later told reporters that he wished he'd had time to describe his more nuanced position on Isreael and Gaza: He said he opposes any sale of US offensive weapons to Israel, opposed the invasion of Gaza, finds the Netanyahu Administration terrible, and supports a two-state solution. But the picture of him refusing to take a stand will linger throughout the campaign.
In 2022, AIPAC's PAC spent $2.1 million supporting Foushee, with Democratic Majority for Israel chipping in an additional $300,000 to back the Democrat. They sought to defeat Allam, who has been outspoken in support of Palestinian rights, and who was the first Muslim woman elected to public office in the state. This funding, as well as a $1 million injection from the PAC funded by crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried for Foushee, made the race the most expensive Democratic congressional primary in state history. Foushee ultimately won by nine points over Allam in 2022, with 46 percent of the vote.
"The Democratic Party's leadership is not only failing to effectively fight back against Donald Trump, they have also failed to deliver a vision that we can all believe in," Ossé said in a statement to which was the first to report the news of his filing. "These failures are some of the many reasons why I am currently exploring a potential run for New York's 8th Congressional District."
According to filings with the Federal Election Commission as of Thursday morning, six candidates besides Pelosi have registered campaign committees for the June 2026 Democratic primary for California's 11th congressional district, the San Francisco-based congressional seat Pelosi currently represents. RELATED: Nancy Pelosi announces retirement at the end of her term in Congress in 2027 Two of those candidates had already been gaining attention and some prominence. Both are decades younger than Pelosi, and now could be among the continued wave of generational change within the Democratic Party - similar to how U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced his retirement in September and is likely to be succeeded by one of the numerous younger candidates who have launched bids.
We are not going to win in November with this president, Clooney wrote at the time. On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate. This isn't only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I've spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.
Ossé enters the picture as Mamdani is trying to assuage some Democrats' concerns about his mayoral campaign against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who's running as an independent. Ossé, 27, has a ubiquitous social media presence that Mamdani has cited as a major influence. Any effort by Ossé to unseat Jeffries - one of the most powerful Democrats in the nation - likely would deepen the divide within the Democratic Party over age and ideology.
It's not that Golden, a three-term incumbent and Marine veteran, doesn't deserve a primary from the left. He certainly does. (Golden is one of those Democrats that the elite political press love to call "moderate," as though there is no such thing as a conservative Democrat, which is what he is.) But, dammit, this whole thing doesn't have to get self-destructive right from jump.
They pledged to take on President Trump, make the state more affordable, safeguard immigrants and provide them with Medi-Cal healthcare benefits, and keep the state's over-budget bullet train project intact. There is not yet any clear front-runner in the race to run the nation's most populous state, though former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter has had a small edge in recent polling. Aside from a opaque dig from former state Controller Betty Yee, Porter was not attacked during the debate.
Comptroller Brad Lander leads incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman by 19% in a new progressive poll of a potential Democratic primary matchup in the deep-blue NY-10 district spanning lower Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn. Lander, who is enthusiastically backing Zohran Mamdani's mayoral candidacy, leads Goldman by 52%-to-33% in the poll of a hypothetical one-on-one 2026 primary matchup. Goldman, a two-term pro-Israel moderate who hasn't endorsed Mamdani yet, says he and Lander are allies in the fight against President Trump and he welcomes competition in a potential primary face-off.
"They are going to be vicious," one senior House Democrat told Axios, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer candid thoughts on a sensitive internal battle. The lawmaker predicted it will be Democrats' most brutal member vs. member primary since California Reps. Brad Sherman and Howard Berman faced off in 2012, or when Michigan Reps. John Dingell and Lynn Rivers fought over a seat in 2002.
