DENVILLE, N.J. (AP) — Analilia Mejia will try to expand Democratic momentum in New Jersey as she and Republican Joe Hathaway compete in Thursday’s special election to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Mikie Sherrill when she was elected governor last year.

Mejia, a former head of the Working Families Alliance who has support from Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, emerged from a crowded Democratic primary in February, while Hathaway, a council member in suburban Randolph, was unchallenged.

The contest will decide which party controls the seat in the closely divided House, with the midterms of President Donald Trump’s second term on the horizon. The winner will serve out the final months of Sherrill’s term, and the two could meet again in November.

Mejia has cast the race as a fight for democracy and criticized the president over pardoning Jan. 6 insurrection participants and freezing funding Congress has authorized.

“The people here are ready to do something about it,” she said recently. “We’re not here to write strongly worded letters. Congress has real power.”

Hathaway has seized on Mejia’s progressive credentials, and national Republicans cast her as a socialist.

“I’m running to bring common-sense leadership to D.C & deliver results for our families, not push a far-left agenda,” Hathaway said in a recent social media post.

The 11th District, which covers parts of Essex, Morris and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey’s wealthy suburbs, was long a Republican stronghold but has become increasingly Democratic since Trump’s first term.

Sherrill won the seat in 2018’s midterm elections, when Democrats flipped dozens of seats to take control of Congress. And in 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris carried the district by nearly 9 points.

Saran Cunningham, an 86-year-old retired special educator, said she was initially reluctant to support Mejia, worried that her views were too far to the left. She backed another candidate in the primary. But recently, outside the Morristown early polling location, she said she would now vote for Mejia.

“I think we’ve been tilting a little bit more to the right lately, which worries me,” Cunningham said. “I think that we need people in Congress who will fight for things that will help people as opposed to hurting them.”

Rob Berkowitz, 62, cast his early vote for Hathaway at the Denville polling station. Describing himself as a conservative, Berkowitz gave Trump high marks on immigration, the economy and the war in Iran, comparing him to Winston Churchill. He criticized the Democratic Party for moving away from leaders in the style of Harry Truman, whom he praised.

“They want borders wide open. They don’t want to enforce existing immigration laws,” Berkowitz said. “It’s an extraordinary thing to watch.”

The February Democratic primary pitted Mejia against former Rep. Tom Malinowski and others in a race where the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was a key player. The group’s affiliated super PAC tried to thwart Malinowski after he questioned unconditional aid to the Israeli government. That effort appeared to backfire as Mejia, who said she agreed that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, came out on top.

Mejia campaigned on populist economic policies and pushing to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over the years she has been a regular presence in the state Capitol, advocating for progressive causes, and was Sanders’ political director during his 2020 presidential run. During the Biden administration, she was deputy director of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau.

In addition to winning Sanders’ endorsement, she was backed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Hathaway, a former Yale University football player, has worked in health care and finance as well as in politics as an aide for former GOP Gov. Chris Christie.

The winner will serve until the term ends in January. Both Mejia and Hathaway are also running for the next two-year term, which begins that month.

Mike Catalini, The Associated Press