Filing day for New Jersey’s 2026 congressional elections is still more than six months away, but a striking disparity has begun to develop in who is – and isn’t – launching campaigns to run.
As of today, 21 non-incumbent candidates have announced campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives in New Jersey. Of those 21, 18 are Democrats while just three are Republicans, a sharp difference that could be a sign of a Democratic enthusiasm edge under President Donald Trump’s second administration.
“Democrats smell opportunity,” said Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University. “And recruitment is the first leading trend that you have of what candidates believe is going to be their party’s chances. Whether a party has to pull teeth, or has candidates coming out at the seams, I think tells you a lot about what they perceive as their chances.”
By far the most crowded primary on either side of the aisle is in the closely divided 7th district, where no fewer than eight Democrats – most of them running serious, well-funded campaigns – are looking to take on Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield). New Jersey’s two other Republican-held districts are much more conservative, but both of them also have contested Democratic primaries: four Democrats are running against 2nd district Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and two Democrats are running against 4th district Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester).
Two veteran incumbent Democratic representatives have also drawn primary challenges: two Democrats are seeking to unseat Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) in the 6th district, and one newcomer is taking on Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) in the 12th.
Finally, there’s the 11th district, which will remain in limbo until Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) either wins or loses this November’s gubernatorial election. If Sherrill wins, the special election to replace her will surely draw a crowded field, but even if she loses and runs for re-election to the House next year, fellow Democrat Anna Lee Williams has said she’ll continue her campaign regardless.
On the Republican side, meanwhile, only Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon)’s competitive 9th district has a contested primary, with two Republicans running. One Republican is also campaigning for the 3rd district against Rep. Herb Conaway (D-Delran).
The other seven districts have drawn zero Republican candidates whatsoever thus far. That includes theoretically competitive seats like the 5th, 6th, and 11th districts, all of which voted for Kamala Harris by single-digit margins last year; Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly)’s 5th district came just a few thousand votes away from supporting Trump, but his one declared GOP opponent dropped out of the race this summer.
(These totals don’t count the small number of candidates who have filed fundraising paperwork but who have no visible campaign presence and haven’t responded to the New Jersey Globe’s requests for comment.)
Of course, not every candidate who declares a campaign is in fact a serious contender, something that will become clearer after 3rd quarter fundraising reports are available in October. In the 2nd quarter, though, several non-incumbent Democratic candidates in the 2nd and 7th districts raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, a feat that the two non-incumbent Republicans who filed reports that quarter came nowhere close to matching.
It’s likely that, by the time the March 2026 filing deadline arrives, both parties will have candidates running in every district. No New Jersey congressional race has gone uncontested by one of the two major parties since Republicans failed to field a candidate in the solidly blue 10th district in 2008; even when no one files ahead of the primary, it’s not terribly difficult to get the few hundred write-in votes needed to make the general election ballot, which is what Republican candidate Christian Onuoha did in the 2020 race for the 6th district.
But candidates who arrive on the scene at the last minute are usually less formidable than those who had been recruited months earlier, and they also have far less time to build up serious campaigns and raise money ahead of November 2026.
“There’s a difference between getting your A-Team and getting your B-Team,” Rasmussen said. “When your best candidates are champing at the bit and lining up, and are getting out early, then that’s where recruitment really tells a story.”
New Jersey’s most recent midterm provides some evidence for that theory. In 2022, with Republicans energized to fight back against then-President Joe Biden, 34 non-incumbent Republicans filed to run for Congress, including seven in the 7th district alone; they were joined by just 11 non-incumbent Democrats, even though the one open seat that year was held by a Democrat (retiring Rep. Albio Sires).
Indeed, that year ended up being strong for the GOP – Kean flipped the 7th district as Republicans won control of the House – though the party didn’t reach its most optimistic goals, in part because of a new congressional map that limited their opportunities.
Candidate filings from the 2018 midterms paint less of a clear picture: 21 non-incumbent Democrats and 21 non-incumbent Republicans filed to run for Congress ahead of a blue wave election year that saw Democrats flip four New Jersey House seats, fully one-third of the delegation.
There are a couple of asterisks to that statistic, however. Two Republican congressmen retired that year, prompting crowded primary fields to replace them; in several Democratic primaries, meanwhile, early party endorsements for eventual victors Andy Kim, Tom Malinowski, and Mikie Sherrill dissuaded many other contenders from filing to run in the primary, winnowing down previously crowded contests.
The comparison to past years isn’t a perfect one, since they reflect candidates who filed versus candidates who ran. Between now and March, it’s inevitable that many more 2026 candidates will launch campaigns, and a few candidates who are currently running will end theirs.
But Rasmussen said that, given the typical dynamics of midterm elections and Trump’s controversial moves as president, it makes sense that Democrats would be showing more early enthusiasm. “It’s not a surprise that the assessment of potential candidates is that, for Democrats, this is a year to think about running,” he said. “For Republicans, maybe not so much.”
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