Mejia’s Win Wasn’t an Upset — It Was a Warning to Democrats Nationwide

New Jersey Democratic congressional candidate Analilia Mejia’s win has been branded as a progressive upset against the political machine. But this result reflects a sea change in what left voters expect out of the “big D” Democratic party.

A New York Times headline asked if AIPAC helped Mejia win by directing their ire at the “wrong” candidate – but that framing obfuscates the political momentum built on the backs of working class, immigrant, queer, and people of color voters and organizers who are refusing to accept the “lesser of two evils” binary and are instead demanding a party that mirrors the diversity and urgency of its base. Critics of New Jersey’s political machine already say that the system already works against candidates that are women and people of color – so that misread is not surprising.

Mejia is no stranger to the levels of power that her win pushed past. Her trajectory from a union organizer, to the leader of the New Jersey Working Families Party, to the National Political Director for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign shows how she has built a political movement from the ground up. 

Before her time as a deputy director in the Biden administration’s labor department, she was the engine behind the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, where she spent years pushing for statewide wins–like a $15 minimum wage and earned sick leave–that the “Big D” Democratic Party machine now touts as its own.

Her victory in the 11th Congressional District primary wasn’t because a PAC “messed up”; it was the result of an organizer applying years of on-the-ground expertise to a district that the Establishment had long assumed required a more “cautious” brand of Democrat.

However, it is correct for the New York Times to sense how AIPAC’s involvement in the congressional election could have helped her win–maybe not in the way that they thought. After October 7, 2023, AIPAC has continued investing heavily in defeating candidates it views as insufficiently pro-Israel. On the flip side, voters who call Israel’s attacks against Palestine a genocide will not support politicians that get their money from the PAC. 

There is now a growing moral schism in the Democratic Party, one where many voters increasingly fall on pro-AIPAC or anti-AIPAC lines.

At the same time, this new political and societal divide in the Democratic Party is coinciding with record job losses, a political and socioeconomic system that squeezes everyone’s bottom dollar, and a society barely recovering from a pandemic that many fail to acknowledge–all which exacerbate the “enough is enough” moment for voters.

I’ll take this moment to say that “progressive” is a fraught word in and of itself. Those who believe in these policies might not use the label for themselves. They just want a political system that works for the people, not against them – and they’re often asking for basic rights, like safe, affordable housing, healthcare that doesn’t leave them in debt, or police reform that prevents the killings of friends and neighbors.

2022 marked an important year for left voters after abortion care rights were overturned and after affirmative action was struck down. The basis of many civil liberties we enjoy, equal protection, was cut off at the knees. More and more people began to see that even with a Democrat president, our civil liberties could still be under attack–and that the system was very much set up that way (and this is something that communities of color already knew).

Voters have asked their Democratic leaders to do more. In some ways, they have: in New Jersey, the state legislature and former Gov. Phil Murphy worked swiftly to protect reproductive rights by codifying the right to abortion into state law and shielding patients and providers from out-of-state legal retaliation.

However, left voters also have seen where Democratic leaders have gone far, but not far enough: the attempts to enshrine parts of the federal voting rights act that is currently being challenged haven’t been able to pass in a Democratic-majority New Jersey legislature.

The Immigrant Trust Act, which would provide privacy protections for immigrants and codify the limits on police working with federal immigration officials, was eventually broken up into individual pieces to pass–and Murphy didn’t sign two bills, announcing his decision in the eleventh hour before leaving office earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is continuing to work on its Project 2025 handbook it says it didn’t know existed: it’s purging the civil service via Schedule F, using the Comstock Act to ban mail-order medication used in abortion care, and ending birthright citizenship by executive decree – just to name a few policies.

What left voters have wanted from their Democratic leaders is actual change. They don’t want catty tweets for viral engagement; they want rent freezes and meaningful tax reform on the ultra-wealthy.

The Big D party doubted that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani could win his election when he started off in early polling with just 1% support. And yet he did what few politicians on both sides of the aisle do: he physically went out to meet his voters, and he presented a clear economic platform.

Whether or not you agree with him, his messaging was effective enough to help build grassroots momentum to help him win.

And that’s what the Democratic party machine in New Jersey has underestimated. A growing bloc of left voters will no longer fall in line and vote who the party presents to them; they’re going to vote for who best represents their interests.

Take the momentum for Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and former Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop. Together, the two progressives (though I hesitate to consider Fulop a progressive) gained a combined 308,524 votes in the June 2025 primary, surpassing Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s 286,244 number. This turnout signals that this shift is not isolated to one race.

Mejia’s win, therefore, should not be a surprise. For months, social justice advocates have worked in unison—through grassroots efforts to increase voter turnout, like the Million Voters Project, through holding continuous press conferences, rallies, and Know Your Rights trainings so that more and more New Jerseyans would understand how far the Democratic Party is protecting their rights (or not).

Left voters believe there is an assault on their civil liberties: from the attempt to dismantle  federal protections for LGBTQ+ students to the Department of Justice targeting political dissenters and the systematic erasure of DEI initiatives across the board.

Their immigrant families and neighbors are being taken off the streets, in the middle of the night, separated from their children—in ways that raise serious concerns over whether due process has been followed.

The Democratic Party can continue to treat wins like Mejia’s as anomalies or “upsets” born of special circumstances. Or, they can finally realize that the ground has shifted beneath them. 
Mejia didn’t win because of a headline or a Super PAC’s interference. She won because she met voters where they are: by campaigning alongside them, hand-in-hand with a large network of social justice organizers across the state.

If the Big D party wants to stop being “surprised,” they need to stop governing from a place of caution and start leading from a place of conviction. Because in New Jersey and beyond, the voters aren’t waiting for the machine to catch up anymore. They’re building outside of it.