State Sen. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) may be the Democratic nominee for New Jersey’s 9th congressional district this year, but she’s never actually faced voters during her congressional campaign. When she appears on the ballot on November 5, it will be the first time many 9th district voters will have ever encountered her.
With that in mind, Pou is up on digital platforms with two new ads – one in English and the other in Spanish – highlighting her work in the state legislature and her relationship with the late Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson), whose seat she’s hoping to win.
“Congressman Pascrell was my mentor, who inspired me to always fight for what’s right,” Pou says in the English-language spot. “I’m Nellie Pou, and in the legislature, I worked to expand health care access, pass criminal justice reform, and bring down costs. I’m running for Congress to carry on Bill Pascrell’s legacy: to take on corporate greed, stand up to the gun lobby, and protect a woman’s right to choose. I approve this message because I’ll always fight for you.”
The Spanish-language spot largely sticks to the same script, but with an added line: that if elected to the plurality-Hispanic 9th district, Pou would be the state’s first-ever Latina congresswoman.
Pou’s campaign said the ad is part of a “six-figure buy”; the campaign is so new that it has not yet had to file any campaign finance reports indicating how much money they have to spend overall.
Just a couple of months ago, Pascrell looked like he was on track to win a 15th term in Congress in the 9th district, a strongly Democratic district based in Paterson. But after suffering a series of medical issues over the summer, Pascrell died on August 21 at the age of 87, forcing local Democrats to choose a new nominee within an extremely short timeframe (the deadline for replacing names on the ballot was August 29).
After a frenzied weeklong campaign involving a number of other local politicians, Pou, the state senator for Paterson and the woman who once succeeded Pascrell in the Assembly, emerged as the consensus choice. She was officially picked as the replacement nominee at a convention on August 29; voters themselves were not given the chance to weigh in because of how close Pascrell’s death was to the November election.
Pou now faces Republican Billy Prempeh, who previously lost to Pascrell in both 2022 and 2020. Given the Democratic tilt of the seat and Prempeh’s generally lackluster fundraising, Pou is favored, but her new ads signal that she’s not taking anything for granted.