Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), fresh off her victory in a September special election to succeed the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark), has defeated Republican Carmen Bucco to win her first full term representing New Jersey’s 10th congressional district, the New Jersey Globe projects.
As of 1:30 a.m., McIver leads Bucco 74% to 23%; the urban, majority-Black 10th district is the most Democratic district in New Jersey and among the bluest in the entire country, so anything but a Democratic landslide would have been a surprise.
Voters in the 10th district had been represented by a member of the Payne family beginning in 1989, when Rep. Donald Payne Sr. (D-Newark) took office and became the first Black member of Congress in New Jersey history. Payne died of cancer in 2012, and his son, then-Newark Council President Donald Payne Jr., won his seat in his place.
The younger Payne served in Congress for nearly 12 years, but he, too, unfortunately suffered from health problems, and this April he suffered a heart attack that sent him into a coma from which he never woke up; he died on April 24. It was too late to replace his name on ballots in the June primary, which he won posthumously; instead, Gov. Phil Murphy ordered a special election, with a primary election on July 16 and a general election on September 18.
In theory, that could have created a wide-open race among the many ambitious Democrats in the 10th district – a race that, as New Jersey’s first standalone House special election since 1950, was subject to unpredictable turnout patterns that could have produced unexpected results. The New Jersey Globe’s initial shortlist for the seat featured 18 names, and there was always the possibility that a well-funded political outsider could come in and shake up the race, too.
But early on, Democratic leaders in Essex County decided they wanted to present a united front in the special election – and they figured that McIver, the president of the Newark Municipal Council and a close ally of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, was their best bet. After launching her campaign, McIver got endorsements from Gov. Phil Murphy, Senator Cory Booker, and Payne’s family, a show of force that proved she was the consensus choice among New Jersey Democrats.
The other 10 candidates who filed to run – chief among them Linden Mayor Derek Armstead and Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker (D-Jersey City) – never found an answer for that flood of support. After a largely non-ideological battle where every candidate ran on continuing Payne’s legacy, McIver ended up winning the primary with 47% of the vote, while Armstead came in second place with just 14%.
Shortly after her primary victory, McIver was chosen by Democratic county committeemembers in the 10th district to take Payne’s place on the November ballot for a full term. Then, in September, McIver overwhelmingly won the special election to fill the remainder of Payne’s current term; she beat Bucco, a tailor and frequent candidate for local office, 81% to 16%.
McIver’s victory tonight means that she’ll be in Congress for at least another two years – and, at 38 years old, she could be around much longer than that.