After one day of early voting (and plenty of time for mail-in ballots to come in), 16,566 voters have already cast their ballots in the February 5 special Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 11th congressional district.
According to data compiled by @umichvoter, 15,634 Democrats have returned vote-by-mail ballots, while another 941 showed up for the first day of early in-person voting yesterday.
Essex County is narrowly outvoting Morris County, 7,875 (47.5%) to 7,499 (45.2%), a smaller advantage than the approximately 51%-41% breakdown seen in recent prior elections; the remaining 1,201 votes (7.2%) are in Passaic County. The three most vote-rich towns at the moment are the liberal Essex County bastions of Montclair (1,245 votes), Maplewood (1,045 votes), and Bloomfield (1,019 votes).
When former Gov. Phil Murphy set the special primary date for a Thursday in early February, there were plenty of concerns about how many voters would turn up – or even know an election was happening. Those concerns have only been exacerbated by the harsh winter weather of the last week, with snow covering the district and the temperature on Election Day projected to reach a balmy high of 30˚.
Still, turnout thus far is approximately matching the last time the 11th district was on primary ballots, in June 2024; the day after early voting started that year, 16,941 Democrats had cast votes, per the Associated Press’s Ryan Dubicki. A total of 51,848 11th district Democrats ended up voting in the 2024 primary, which Mikie Sherrill won in a landslide over a minor challenger.
Unlike this year’s race, though, the 2024 primary didn’t feature 11 Democrats running for the seat, nor did it witness millions of dollars in spending from both the candidates themselves and a bevy of outside groups. 11th district Republicans will also go to the polls on February 5, but their candidate for the seat, Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway, is uncontested.
