The April 16 special general election will fill the vacant 11th Congressional District seat left open when Mikie Sherrill resigned to become governor. The district includes most of Morris County and parts of Essex and Passaic counties, and polls close at 8 p.m. Thursday.
MORRISTOWN, NJ – Voters in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District head to the polls Thursday in a special general election that will decide who fills the U.S. House seat vacated by Gov. Mikie Sherrill. The race will determine who represents the district for the remainder of the current congressional term, with Democrat Analilia Mejia facing Republican Joe Hathaway.
The district is centered in Morris County and also includes portions of Essex and Passaic counties. That means Morristown-area voters are part of a contest with both local and national implications, including the balance of power in a narrowly divided U.S. House.
Early in-person voting ran from April 6 through April 14, according to Morris County’s election calendar and the Town of Morristown’s election notices. Election Day voting is scheduled for Thursday, April 16, and polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
The special election was scheduled after Sherrill resigned her House seat following her election as New Jersey governor. Gov. Phil Murphy issued the writ of election on Nov. 21, 2025, setting a special primary for February and the special general election for April 16.
Mejia, a progressive organizer and former Labor Department official, won the Democratic special primary in February after a crowded contest. Hathaway, a Randolph Township Council member, ran unopposed for the Republican nomination.
While special elections often draw lower turnout than November general elections, the 11th District enters Thursday’s vote as a Democratic-leaning seat, not a pure toss-up. According to the New Jersey voter registration summary dated Feb. 5, 2026, the district had about 225,875 Democrats, 164,715 Republicans, and 205,211 unaffiliated voters. Sherrill also won reelection in 2024 with about 57% of the vote, and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried the district that year with 53%, according to the AP.
As of Monday, about 54,000 votes had already been cast in the special election, including roughly 34,000 from Democrats, 13,000 from Republicans, and more than 7,000 from unaffiliated voters, according to the AP. That early vote total suggested a meaningful chunk of the electorate had already participated before Election Day.
How quickly the race is called will depend on the margin and on outstanding ballots. Morris County began opening voted mail-in ballots on April 11 and began tabulation on April 15, according to a county legal notice. State election timelines also show that some mail ballots can still arrive after Election Day if they meet statutory deadlines, with key receipt dates extending to April 18 and April 22. Official county results are due to the secretary of state by May 6, and state certification is scheduled by May 16.
That means unofficial results will begin coming in Thursday night, but the final certified outcome will take longer. In the February special primary, the AP first posted results minutes after polls closed, but the race itself was not called until several days later.
What Morristown-area voters should know Thursday is straightforward: the election is real, the seat is vacant, and the result will decide who represents the district in Washington for the rest of the term. The contest is districtwide, not county-only, and it does not include Sussex County under the current congressional map.