NJ-11 Election 2026: Where Mejia, Hathaway and Bond Stand on Taxes, Schools and ICE

On the ballot as

Democrat

Hometown

Glen Ridge, where she has lived for about 14 years with her husband and two sons

Current office

U.S. representative, NJ-11, since April 20, 2026; member of the House Homeland Security and Small Business committees

Work

Labor organizer and policy advocate; former executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance

Education

Rutgers University in New Brunswick, bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees

April result

Won the special election 60.1% to 39.4%

Mejia grew up in Elizabeth, the daughter of a garment worker and a machinist who broke his back at work while her mother was pregnant with her. She says there were times the refrigerator was empty, and she credits community health centers, college grants and teachers who stayed after school with getting her to Congress.

She spent her career in the labor movement, working for the United Food and Commercial Workers and SEIU Local 32BJ before leading the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, a progressive advocacy group, starting in 2014. There she campaigned for New Jersey’s $15 minimum wage and paid sick days. She later served as national political director of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and as deputy director of the Women’s Bureau at the U.S. Labor Department.

When Sherrill left Congress to become governor, Mejia won an 11-candidate Democratic primary in February with 29.3% of the vote and beat Hathaway in April. Her first bill, the Living Wage for All Act, would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour, according to her office.

In our interview

Why she’s running

Mejia says she ran because she was “sick and tired, like so many of you, of watching the corruption, the big money.” After 25 years as an organizer and policy advocate, she says she has watched elected officials bend to “those golden handcuffs of corporate PAC dollars” for fear of losing office.

Her pitch is also personal. She calls herself a former “working poor kid” who made it because public programs worked. “I benefited from smart public policies that uplifted me,” she said. “And now that I am in a position in which I can ensure that other families have the same, I am committed to doing so because I know what happens when we don’t.”

Affordability and taxes

Mejia says she feels the squeeze as a Glen Ridge parent, too. Property taxes are local, she argues, but Washington’s choices drive them. When federal education money shrinks, “those obligations to students are transferred back to the state and back to the municipality,” and homeowners pay the difference.

Her answer is tax fairness: closing corporate loopholes, taxing capital gains the way wages are taxed and making the wealthiest pay more. Right now, she said, ordinary families pay “at a higher rate than multi-millionaires, billionaires and corporations. That’s not fair.”

She blames H.R. 1, the 2025 Republican tax and spending law she calls “the big ugly bill,” for giving corporations permanent breaks and families temporary ones. She said its higher cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, “ends right after these elections.” The higher cap actually runs through the 2029 tax year and drops back to $10,000 in 2030, according to the law. She also warned of Medicare cuts; the Congressional Budget Office estimated the law could trigger about $500 billion in automatic Medicare cuts over a decade unless Congress steps in.

Schools and school funding

Mejia, whose two sons attend Glen Ridge schools, wants a fully funded federal Department of Education so the cost of educating children doesn’t fall back on towns. She also says Washington should invest in “bringing in the best and brightest into our education system,” including by making sure college debt doesn’t keep strong candidates out of teaching.

Parents, she added, need transparency and a real voice in their schools. On Montclair’s deficit, which she says she knows from the outside, the hardest part is who pays for it: “In the end, it is our children who are going to bear the cost of adults not being able to find smart solutions in a timely way.”

Small business

As a member of the House Small Business Committee, Mejia says she has spent much of her six months in office walking main streets and hearing the same complaints about costs. She wants to restore Small Business Administration programs that help owners start and expand, calling small businesses “the on-ramp to the middle class for a lot of families.”

She also wants disaster aid, including help after the flooding the district has seen, delivered no matter whether a state votes red or blue. And she calls the administration’s tariffs “horrible” for owners who rely on imported supplies.

Immigration and ICE

Mejia calls the immigration system “broken,” with people who follow the rules stuck in legal limbo for a decade or more. She described visiting a constituent, a Morris County restaurant owner, at Delaney Hall, the immigration detention center in Newark. “She looked so sick that I demanded that she be taken to the clinic,” Mejia said. Within half an hour, staff confirmed what the woman had been saying: she was getting a quarter of her diabetes medication.

When people who follow the legal process lose due process, Mejia argues, every American loses it. That’s why she wants to “abolish and replace” ICE with a system that invests in immigration judges and lawyers. “If we are able to figure out within seconds whether or not that credit card application, you’re credit worthy, then it shouldn’t take a decade to determine whether or not … we want to embrace you into the fabric of our society,” she said.

We asked about Hathaway’s claim that she won’t say violent criminals here illegally should be removed from the country. She didn’t answer that directly. She said “you can’t have a nation without borders,” and that when someone is a violent criminal, that should be determined “fairly, transparently, and quickly.” Her objection is to how enforcement works now, which she calls profiling.

Money in politics

Mejia calls fundraising “a terrible, terrible system” that keeps members of Congress “dialing for dollars” instead of working on policy. She says she ran in four elections in 11 months and was outspent 10 to one in the February primary.

Her campaign has raised about $2.23 million this cycle, about 79% of it from individuals, according to the Federal Election Commission. She says her average donation is about $57, raised largely through her own calls to friends and neighbors. “I believe that organized people always beats out organized money,” she said.

In September she launched a super PAC to back other progressive challengers, Axios reported; she describes it as a way to train candidates to run without big money. She says she will vote for campaign finance reform, wants to reverse Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to unlimited independent political spending, and won’t take corporate PAC money. As for donors who want her ear, she says people try everywhere, “at the grocery store, at fundraising events,” and that her votes follow her values.

In her words

“Running for Congress is a job interview,” Mejia said, one she reapplies for every two years. Voters, she said, should send people “who are unbought,” because “it’s not about left and right, it’s about right and wrong.” She said this in her answer on immigration, as she pivoted to money in politics.

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On the ballot as

Republican

Hometown

Randolph, where he lives with his wife, Whitney, and their three children; grew up in Clifton

Current office

Randolph Township Council; served as mayor in 2025

Work

Advance staff in Gov. Chris Christie’s office, 2010 to 2014; more than a decade in corporate communications for health care and pharmaceutical companies

Education

Yale University, political science, 2009

April result

Lost the special election 60.1% to 39.4%

Hathaway grew up in Clifton and played varsity football at Yale, earning All-Ivy League honors, according to his Randolph Township bio. After four years on Christie’s advance team, he worked in communications for drug companies, health technology firms and marketing agencies.

He joined the Randolph council by appointment in 2022, won election to the seat that November and again in 2024, and was chosen by his colleagues as mayor for 2025, according to the New Jersey Globe. He was the only Republican in both the special and regular primaries this year.

His platform centers on affordability: a refundable credit and tax freeze for first-time homebuyers, a larger child tax credit, the Gateway Tunnel and one-seat rail to New York City, and an energy plan that includes nuclear, natural gas, solar and land-based wind.

In our interview

His local-government pitch

Asked about schools, Hathaway argued that Washington needs “more of a mayor’s mindset.” Local officials from both parties, he says, know “the issues that are truly impacting quality of life in your district” and can bring back federal money and policy to address them. He rejects the idea that a congressional candidate should stay out of state and local fights, especially when it comes to schools.

Affordability and taxes

Hathaway credits the 2025 tax law for raising the cap on the state and local tax deduction from $10,000 to $40,000, and he wants to “get rid of that cap completely.” He notes that Republicans created the cap in 2017 and that he opposed it then and now.

He also proposes a tax freeze for first-time homebuyers. Young buyers in a town like Montclair, he said, should get “more money back in their pocket instead of sending it down to Washington.” Lower energy costs and more vocational training round out his plan.

Schools and school funding

Hathaway, who has two children in Randolph’s schools, sees Montclair’s deficit first as a failure of oversight. “When you wake up one day and say, Hey, where did twenty million dollars go in the school budget? That’s not a cost issue, that’s an accountability issue,” he said.

He agrees the funding structure is also strained, and he offers a federal idea, using Jefferson Township in Morris County as his example. Jefferson is losing state school aid, he says, while environmental rules in the Highlands, a protected watershed region, limit the development that could bring in more tax revenue. He has proposed expanding federal payments in lieu of taxes, the money Washington pays towns for untaxable federal land such as national parks and military bases, to cover Highlands towns. “That’s a federal solution to solve this school funding problem,” he said, while the larger fix to the state’s funding formula will have to come from Trenton with both parties at the table.

Small business

Hathaway calls New Jersey “the worst business state in the country.” The Tax Foundation ranks it 49th of 50 for tax competitiveness, only ahead of New York. He breaks with President Donald Trump on tariffs, which he says are “really bad for our small businesses” because owners “can’t deal with the uncertainty.”

He opposes Mejia’s bill for a $25 federal minimum wage, saying it would “quadruple” labor costs for small businesses. A $25 minimum is about 3.4 times the current $7.25 federal minimum and about 1.6 times New Jersey’s minimum of roughly $16.

His alternative is training. He wants federal grants and tax credits for businesses that create jobs here, plus vocational programs at schools like County College of Morris that move workers into better-paying careers. “How about we don’t keep them chained to a minimum wage life sentence?” he said. He sees minimum wage jobs as entry-level work, recalling his own first job “flipping burgers and french fries behind a snack bar at the Cedar Street Pool in Caldwell.”

Immigration and ICE

Hathaway wants ICE to focus on violent criminals and to change how it operates, with more training, better technology, body cameras and no masks. That, he said, would keep “Americans safer” and “the people that they’re taking under arrest safer too.”

He also breaks with the administration on reported arrest targets. “We should not be having quotas for any type of law enforcement activity, especially something like this,” he said, calling the policy “a bad policy for people in my district.” He would still vote to fund ICE, arguing the money pays for training and technology that make operations safer.

On the bigger picture, he backs comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to green cards for long-term residents who work and have no criminal record. Those people, he said, “shouldn’t have to be looking over their shoulder, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Money in politics

Hathaway says about 95% of his donors are individuals. Federal Election Commission records show he has raised $837,601 this cycle, about 95% of it from individuals, according to the FEC. “People have supported me because of my positions, right? Not the other way around,” he said.

Most of his answer focused on Mejia. He says she called money in politics the country’s biggest problem, then voted against banning congressional stock trading and launched a super PAC that he says she uses “to buy and boss other candidates.” Mejia did vote against the Stop Insider Trading Act in July, as did seven other New Jersey Democrats. The bill barred members of Congress from buying stock but not from holding it, and it came packaged in a single vote with new voter ID requirements.

In his words

Hathaway says he’ll tell voters when he agrees with the president and when he doesn’t, and “always do what’s right for NJ-11 voters.” He said that in his answer on small business. In his answer on money in politics, he said Washington needs people “who know how to roll up their sleeves, get things done, put the political nonsense aside.”

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On the ballot as

Hope for Tomorrow, the slogan independent candidates can print in place of a party name

Hometown

Montclair

Work

Former pension fund manager; he says he has worked more than 20 years in the health care industry

Community

Deacon at his church, where he started a food pantry

Education

Dartmouth College, bachelor’s degree; Harvard Business School, MBA

April result

625 votes, or 0.5%

Bond worked at Morgan Guaranty, Goldman Sachs and Lazard before running his own pension management firm in the 1990s, according to the New Jersey Globe. In 2002 he pleaded guilty in one case and was convicted by a jury in another of federal investment adviser fraud and wire fraud involving institutional clients, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. A judge sentenced him to 12 years and seven months. He was released in 2008 and paid more than $7 million in restitution and fines, according to the Globe. Bond told The Montclair Pod he spent between three and four years in prison.

He doesn’t separate that history from this campaign. “I’ve learned a great deal about forgiveness,” he said, adding that he brings “the perspectives of those who are unheard, those who are victimized by the system as it exists.”

Bond has reported no contributions this cycle, according to Ballotpedia, and was not invited to the Oct. 26 debate. His wife of more than 40 years, Sheila Bond, a plastic surgeon, died of breast cancer this fall.

In our interview

Why he’s running

Bond calls Hope for Tomorrow “more than just an election” and “an opportunity to represent those who are unrepresented.” He says he sees neighbors “struggling the way they’ve never struggled before” and doesn’t need a party label to serve them.

He credits his late wife as the force behind the run. She wanted him to keep speaking for people “who are speechless and feel unheard in our society,” he said.

Affordability

We didn’t ask Bond about taxes. He brought up affordability through the food pantry he started at his church. With the Lackawanna Plaza Pathmark closed for more than a decade, he says residents south of Bloomfield Avenue have few places to buy groceries. He says the pantry served almost 40,000 people in its first year, not all of them from Montclair, and now runs every two weeks instead of weekly. The demand, he said, shows “food insecurity at levels unconscionable in our society.”

Health care

Health care is the issue Bond returns to most. His wife fought breast cancer for 10 years, and he says the cost “approached seven figures a year.” “Most people cannot afford to wage that kind of battle,” he said, and he wants fair access to care for everyone.

Small business

Bond says he has run small businesses all his life, as did his wife, and that owners need room to grow before they can raise wages. He isn’t against tariffs, but says they should target “those things that specifically are causing trade imbalance and economic instability” instead of hitting everything across the board, because the costs trickle down to small owners.

Immigration and ICE

Bond says volunteers at the pantry can tell when ICE is in the area, because fewer people come for food. “There’s a reason to protect our borders, but I think it can be done in a more humane way,” he said. People who have lived here for years, he added, need “an equitable process” to secure their place.

Money in politics and running independent

Bond has no fundraising operation and no invitation to the debate, and he says that suits him. “I’m not afraid to go up against the big bad wolf,” he said. Running without a party means “I don’t have big organizations, big corporations that I have to report to.”

He describes the campaign as a “shoestring budget” run by family and friends. Win or lose, he says Hope for Tomorrow will go on as a ministry with daily devotionals, podcasts and music, the way his wife envisioned it.

In his words

Bond asks voters to think about whether either major party has improved their lives. “Consider the independent alternative,” he said.

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