Pou gained 30 points in NJ-9, the biggest Democratic increase in a state

Two years ago, Republicans thought they had found their next congressional pickup in New Jersey: a freshman Democratic congresswoman who had barely won her seat in a district Donald Trump carried.

Instead, Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) delivered the biggest Democratic improvement in the state, turning a five-point victory in 2024 into a 35-point landslide in 2026, a stunning 30-percentage-point swing that effectively erased Republican hopes of making New Jersey’s 9th district a battleground.

Pou became a candidate for Congress just days after the death of longtime Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-Paterson), who died on August 21, 2024, at age 87.  Democratic leaders had little time to find a replacement, and Pou, who had spent 28 years in the Legislature, entered the race with less than ten weeks before Election Day.

She won her first term by just 12,575 votes, defeating Republican Billy Prempeh, an Air Force veteran who was challenging Pascrell for the third time, 50.8% to 45.9%, while Trump carried the district by 3,259 votes, a one-point margin over Kamala Harris.

That put a target on Pou’s back almost immediately.

The National Republican Congressional Committee saw an opportunity to capture a Democratic seat that Pascrell had held for nearly three decades.  Republicans had watched Pascrell’s 34-point victory in 2020 shrink to 11 points in 2022, and Pou’s five-point win suggested that the district’s political realignment might be accelerating.

Instead, it reversed.  Pou won 66.6% of the vote to 31.7% for Republican Rosie Pino, a Clifton councilwoman.

Pou increased her share of the vote by nearly 16 percentage points, from 50.8% to 66.6%, while the Republican share fell more than 14 points, from 45.9% to 31.7%.  The result was a roughly 30-point swing in the Democratic margin.

Her performance also substantially exceeded Pascrell’s final election in 2022, when he defeated Prempeh, 55% to 43.6%, an 11-point victory. Pou’s 35-point margin was roughly 24 points larger.

In Bergen County, where Pascrell had won by just one point in 2022, Prempeh defeated Pou by four points in 2024, and Trump won by seven.  This year, Pou carried the Bergen portion by 24 points — a 28-point reversal from two years ago.

In Hudson County, Pascrell won by 18 points in 2022, but Pou’s margin fell to seven points in 2024. This year, she won by 38 points, a 31-point improvement.

And in Passaic County, the heart of the district, Pascrell’s 23-point margin in 2022 shrank to 14 points for Pou in 2024. This year, she won by 47 points, a 33-point improvement.

Pou carried 16 municipalities that Prempeh won two years ago, including Oakland, Lyndhurst, North Arlington, Saddle Brook, Wayne and Hawthorne.

In Paterson, Pascrell’s hometown and the district’s Democratic anchor, Pascrell won by 63 points in 2022. Pou’s margin fell to 41 points in 2024 before surging to 75 points this year.

In Passaic, where Trump scored a surprising victory in 2024, Pascrell’s 26-point margin in 2022 had fallen to just eight points for Pou. This year, she won by 54 points, a 46-point improvement over her first election.

Even North Haledon, Pou’s hometown and a Republican stronghold, moved in her direction. Prempeh won it by 30 points against Pascrell in 2022 and 26 points against Pou in 2024; Pino’s margin was just 11 points.

The Bergen County results were particularly devastating for Republicans. Pou flipped Carlstadt, where Prempeh had won by 15 points against Pascrell in 2022 and 17 points against Pou in 2024, carrying it by five points this year.

North Arlington, which Republicans won by 12 points in 2022 and 13 points in 2024, gave Pou a 12-point victory. Saddle Brook went from Republican +4 in 2022 to Republican +13 in 2024 before flipping to Pou by 14 points.

Oakland, where Prempeh won by nine points in 2022 and 14 points in 2024, went for Pou by seven. Lyndhurst moved from Republican +9 in 2022 to Republican +11 in 2024 before giving Pou a 13-point victory.

Some of the largest shifts came in towns where Republicans had narrowly prevailed two years earlier. Garfield moved from Pou +1 to Pou +40, Elmwood Park from Prempeh +6 to Pou +25, and South Hackensack from Prempeh +8 to Pou +32.

Fairview moved from Pou +4 to Pou +51, a 47-point improvement. Little Ferry went from Pou +3 to Pou +38, while Lodi shifted from Pou +1 to Pou +36.

Democrats also made substantial gains in communities that had already supported Pou. Cliffside Park moved from Pou +11 to Pou +39, Rutherford from Pou +11 to Pou +36, and Edgewater from Pou +31 to Pou +54.

Republicans retained Franklin Lakes, but their margin fell from 31 points to 15. They also held Teterboro, although their 62-point advantage shrank to 43.

In Passaic County, the Democratic gains extended well beyond Paterson and Passaic. Hawthorne, which Prempeh carried by five points in both 2022 and 2024, went for Pou by 18. Pompton Lakes flipped from Republican +13 to Democratic +11, and Wayne moved from Republican +7 to Democratic +12.

Haledon gave Pou a 59-point victory, up from 23 points in 2024 and nearly double Pascrell’s 31-point margin in 2022. Prospect Park moved from Pou +27 to Pou +64, surpassing Pascrell’s 43-point victory four years earlier.

In Hudson County, Pou carried Kearny by 39 points, compared with seven points two years earlier and 16 points for Pascrell in 2022. Secaucus gave Pou a 36-point victory, up from eight points in 2024 and 21 points in 2022.

Clifton provided an especially uncomfortable result for Pino, who was simultaneously seeking another term on the City Council. Pascrell carried Clifton by 16 points in 2022, but Pou’s margin dropped to seven points in 2024. This year, Pou won by 41 points, a 34-point improvement in her opponent’s hometown.

Pino narrowly held the seventh and final council seat, finishing seventh in a field of 19 candidates competing for seven positions.  She received 6,998 votes, just 283 more than eighth-place finisher Tarek Alnatur, with provisional ballots still to be counted.

These numbers are preliminary.  Provisional ballots remain to be counted, and election officials are still pursuing voters whose mail-in ballots require corrections through the cure-letter process; final results could change the margins.  Bergen County results are from Election Day.

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