Ex-Sherrill intern will vie to become congresswoman’s successor

 

Just a few years ago, Marc Chaaban was working on Capitol Hill as an intern for Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair). Now Sherrill is the governor-elect of New Jersey, and Chaaban wants to be her successor.

Chaaban, a 25-year-old Morris County native, announced this morning that he will run in the special Democratic primary for the 11th congressional district, a race that’s already full of big-name politicians and is likely to host an explosive intra-party contest.

“For too long, New Jerseyans have been let down, betrayed, and sold out by the same old politicians,” Chaaban said in his campaign announcement. “We deserve better than corrupt deals, machine politics, and do-nothing Democrats who claim to be standing up to MAGA while raking in millions in MAGA donor money. We deserve leaders who will say no more corporate money in politics, no more members of Congress trading stocks, and no more capitulating to Donald Trump.”

The son of Lebanese immigrants, Chaaban grew up in Montville and spent close to four years working in Congress, including stints with Sherrill, now-Senator Ruben Gallego, and on the House Budget Committee as the Democratic press secretary. After departing Washington at the beginning of this year, Chaaban shifted to social media, posting videos on YouTube and Instagram that he says “[speak] directly to Gen Z Americans about politics, culture, and life” and that often get hundreds of thousands of views.

Chaaban is the eighth Democrat to announce a campaign for the 11th district, a Democratic-leaning district in the suburbs of North Jersey, and he starts out with some obvious disadvantages compared to his opponents. Among the other Democrats running for the seat are a former congressman, two county commissioners – one of whom already has a massive amount of institutional support – and two local councilmen.

In his launch video, however, Chaaban lays out the case he’s likely to try to make to 11th district voters: New Jersey politics is often viewed as a cesspool of corruption and greed, and only an outsider can change that. The video also references another issue, the war in Gaza, that has created sharp ideological and generational divides in the Democratic Party in recent years.

“Why are my tax dollars funding foreign atrocities while we’re cutting health care for millions at home?” Chaaban asks.

Unknowns abound about the special election for the 11th district, including when it will be held; Sherrill hasn’t resigned from Congress yet, and no date to determine her successor has been set. That hasn’t stopped the campaign to succeed her from developing quickly, but no one knows for sure yet who the frontrunners will be or what fault lines will develop among the candidates.

Chaaban, for his part, fits into a larger trend of younger Democrats choosing to run for public office as the party reckons with its reliance on older politicians, and he’s promising to chart a more populist path in Washington.

“The corporations, special interests, MAGA billionaires – they’ve got enough representation in Congress,” he said in his video. “Send me to Washington, and I’ll fight for your family.”