Analilia Mejia backed by Sanders, AOC wins New Jersey Democratic primary

A progressive organizer backed by left-wing champions Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez One step away from winning a seat in Congress.

Analilia Mejia, who did the rebuilding Democratic Party A mainstay of her campaign, she is the front-runner in April’s special congressional election for a blue-leaning district in New Jersey after pulling off a huge upset in last week’s Democratic primary.

The showdown at the polls, where Mejia narrowly beat the front-runner, former Rep. Tom Malinowski, was the latest confrontation between progressives and more mainstream Democrats. Mejia ultimately beat out 10 other Democrats for the chance to fill the seat vacated by the incumbent governor. mickey cherrill, Who resigned after winning the state governor’s elections last November.

While Mejia was the obvious choice for the left wing of the party’s base, the rest of the field appeared to split the more moderate and center-left votes. Malinowski was subjected to a series of attack ads published by a group affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which opposed Malinowski because he said he supported conditions on aid to Israel.

“Abolish the Ice” – Sanders and Mejia’s AOC-backed stance on these issues

Analilia Mejia, Democratic House candidate for New Jersey, speaks to supporters and members of the media at Paper Plane Coffee Co. In Montclair, New Jersey, on Thursday, January 29, 2026 (Heather Khalifa/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trailing by nearly 900 votes after five days of primaries, Malinowski conceded Tuesday.

Regardless of how she wins, Mejia is drawing praise from national progressive leaders.

“She supports a progressive, populist economic agenda,” the MP said. Ro betrayed us The California governor, who also backed Mejia, confirmed on Friday Posted on social media. “It’s the future!”

The win for Mejia, who served as national political director for Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, is the left’s latest push against the establishment since New York City’s socialist mayor. Zahran Mamdani He sent shock waves across the country with his June 2025 Democratic primary victory.

An ‘all-out battle’ is brewing in the DUP as Mamdani-style candidates rise in key races

Mamdani’s primary victory, followed by a wide general election win, was not a one-off for the left last year.

Zahran Mamdani delivers a victory speech at a municipal election night watch party, Tuesday, November 4, 2025, in New York City. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

Transit advocate and progressive organizer Katie Wilson narrowly exited Incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell is running for mayor of Seattle.

Detroit City Council Speaker Mary Sheffield, known for her focus on housing equity, won the race for Detroit mayor in a landslide, succeeding longtime Mayor Mike Duggan.

Democrats score big election victories in 2025, but the victories don’t erase the party’s critical weaknesses.

It wasn’t just city hall battles.

Progressive candidates over-performed in state legislative battles, as well as in special congressional elections.

Adelita Grijalva, supported by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, headed to the elections in the race to succeed her late father, the former president. Representative Raúl Grijalva In a left-leaning congressional seat in Arizona. In the Democratic primary, the runner-up to Grijalva was another progressive social influencer, Deja Vox.

And in Tennessee, progressive state legislator Aftin Behn won the Democratic primary for an open congressional seat in a GOP-dominated district before failing in the general election in a race that captured significant national attention.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a leading group on the left, told Fox News Digital that “Analilia Mejia’s important showing proves that voters, when given a choice, want Democrats with an inspiring vision that boldly challenges powerful interests on behalf of working families.”

PCCC co-founder Adam Green, a New Jersey native who knocked on Mejia’s doors and spoke at a rally with Mejia and Sanders on the eve of the primary, added that primary voters “have made it clear they want Democrats who will shake up the broken political and economic system — not just be anti-Trump.”

But Matt Bennett, executive vice president of the moderate Democratic-aligned group Third Way, said Mejia won “because AIPAC blew up Tom Malinowski.”

Bennett told Fox News Digital that the New Jersey contest was “a Thursday primary in February with very low turnout… and it doesn’t even tell us anything about Democratic voters, let alone the general electorate.”

“Trying to say this is a lesson for Democrats is trivial. It tells us nothing about what we need to do to win in tough places,” Bennett stressed.

Republicans are pushing to make Mamdani the new face of the Democratic Party

Another left-center Democratic nomination battle is shaping up in red-leaning Texas, where Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a progressive champion and vocal Trump critic, faces off in a Senate primary in early March against state Rep. James Tallarico, a slightly more center-left rising star in the party.

Crockett’s late entry into the high-profile presidential race gave the GOP immediate ammunition to paint Democrats as left-wing extremists.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, speaks after announcing her candidacy in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, in Dallas. (LM Otero/AP Photo)

“Across the country, what we’re seeing is a recurrence of Jasmine, and it’s being replicated across the country,” National Republican Senate Committee Chairman Sen. Tim Scott said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “Socialism is popular in the Democratic Party.”

The rise of progressive candidates is a “total battle for the soul of the Democratic Party,” Mike Marinella, national spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), told Fox News Digital, as he pointed to seven Democratic congressional primaries this year from coast to coast where the left-wing candidate appeared to be competing against the more centrist or establishment candidate.

Marinella argued that “the socialist scramble is victorious.”

Key points from the 2025 elections

But it’s not just Republicans sounding the alarm.

“The Democratic Party’s aspirations to win statewide in a red state like Texas simply do not exist without a centrist Democrat who can build a winning coalition of ideologically diverse voters,” Liam Kerr, co-founder of Welcome PAC, a group that advocates for moderate Democratic candidates, told Fox News Digital, referring to the Crockett-Talarico race in Texas.

Democratic state Rep. Aftin Behn speaks to supporters at a watch party after losing a special election for the U.S. 7th Congressional District, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025, in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by George Walker IV/AP)

“If far-left groups want to help save American democracy, they must stop pushing their candidates in swing districts and costing us flip-flop seats,” the Third Way Foundation, a think tank that champions center-left ideas, argued in a memo following the special election in Tennessee.

Click here to download the FOX NEWS app

But Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin sees a silver lining, noting “the sheer breadth of our party.”

“We have conservative Democrats, we have centrist Democrats, we have progressives and we have leftists. And I’ve always said you win elections by addition, not by subtraction. You win by bringing people into your coalition and growing your party,” Martin said in an interview with Fox News Digital last fall.