Rep.-elect LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) will be sworn into the House at 6:30 p.m. today, at last restoring representation to the residents of the 10th congressional district who have been without it since Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark) died in April.
McIver, the former president of the Newark Municipal Council, overwhelmingly won a special election last week in the heavily Democratic, majority-Black 10th district. The election has not yet been certified, but with McIver up 81% to 16%, the state Division of Elections sent a letter to the House Clerk affirming her victory and allowing the House to swear her in before the results are finalized.
“It would appear from these unofficial election results, of the ballots counted so far, that LaMonica McIver has received the highest number of votes for the office of Representative in Congress from the tenth congressional district,” Donna Barber, the acting director of the Division of Elections, said in the letter last week.
McIver’s Republican opponent, Carmen Bucco, said that he had no plans to contest the result and that he, too, wanted McIver to be sworn in as soon as possible.
McIver will start out at 432nd in House seniority (the remaining three seats are vacant), but she’s set to move up quickly. She’ll immediately trump any new House members elected in the regularly scheduled November elections, giving her an early boost in an institution that heavily values seniority; that was a key reason for holding the special election this month and getting McIver sworn in quickly afterwards.
She’s not the only brand-new New Jerseyan in Congress; George Helmy was sworn in as an interim U.S. Senator two weeks ago, meaning that the newest member of both chambers hails from New Jersey. Thanks to McIver’s and Helmy’s respective swearing-ins, New Jersey is down to just one vacant congressional seat (down from three in early September): the 9th district seat last held by the late Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson), where State Sen. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) and Republican Billy Prempeh will face off in November.
Payne, the son of Rep. Donald Payne Sr. (D-Newark) – the first Black congressman in New Jersey history – first took office in 2012 following his father’s death. Like McIver, Payne was the president of the Newark Municipal Council before his time in Congress, though he hailed from the city’s South Ward while McIver represents the Central Ward.
After a long series of health issues, Payne suffered a heart attack in April of this year, and died three weeks later. Following his funeral, Gov. Phil Murphy scheduled a special election to replace him in Congress, with a primary election on July 16 and a general election on September 18.
The Democratic primary drew a large number of interested candidates, including several notable elected officials from across the urban North Jersey district. The 38-year-old McIver, though, had the inside track from the beginning thanks to widespread support among local party leaders, and she easily won the 11-way primary with 47% of the vote.
The general election was not nearly such a crowded affair; in a district that voted for Joe Biden by more than 60 percentage points, McIver’s victory over Bucco was never in doubt.
McIver and Bucco will face off once more in November, where they’ll be competing for a term in Congress beyond the few months remaining in the current congressional session. That race, like the special election last week, is safely Democratic, and McIver is set to continue her work in Congress for at least two more years – and possibly many more beyond that.