This story was originally published on March 24, shortly after the filing deadline had passed. Now that petition challenges have been decided and the list of candidates is final, the New Jersey Globe is republishing it with minor edits to reflect the new state of each race.
With both filing day and petition challenges in the rearview mirror and two months to go until the June 2 primary, the fields for New Jersey’s 2026 U.S. Senate and House elections are settled.
The Garden State is hosting one incredibly crowded open-seat Democratic primary in the 12th district, plus a number of other worthwhile races for the 2nd, 7th, and 8th districts on the Democratic side and for the 9th district and U.S. Senate on the GOP side. All in all, 57 candidates will appear on voters’ primary ballots, 39 of them Democrats and 18 of them Republicans – exactly the same as two years ago.
There likely would have been more had it not been for New Jersey’s new ballot access laws, which require 2,500 signatures for Senate candidates and 500 for House candidates, higher thresholds than some underdog campaigns could handle. Six candidates who did file faced petition challenges from a rival, but only one actually lost their spot on the ballot, and he did so voluntarily before the challenge could begin.
Here’s who did – and didn’t – make the ballot this year.
Click here for a web version of the 2026 filing tracker, or scroll to the bottom of this story for a PDF version.
U.S. Senate: After spending all of 2025 without a single candidate against Senator Cory Booker, Republicans now have four: former News 12 reporter Alex Zdan, state trooper Richard Tabor, former Tabernacle Committeeman Justin Murphy, and physician Robert Lebovics. (A fifth announced candidate, Natalie Rivera, did not file.)
The state’s county Republican organizations split their support among Zdan, Tabor, and Murphy, whatever that support may be good for in the post-county line era, setting up an unpredictable race.
Booker, meanwhile, is set to sail through his primary unopposed after both of his declared primary challengers, former Hunterdon Democratic official Chris Fields and gadfly Lisa McCormick, failed to make the ballot. Fields was continuing to gather signatures right up until the last minute, even asking people passing by outside the Division of Elections in Trenton to help him get on the ballot, but to no avail.
1st district (Camden, Gloucester, Burlington): Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) and Damon Galdo, a construction superintendent and carpenter, are set for a general election matchup after no one else from either party filed to run; Galdo just barely survived a Democratic challenge to his 576 petition signatures.
Galdo, who lost primaries for the same seat in 2022 and 2024, was the only Republican who ever expressed interest in running for the safely blue district. Norcross originally had a progressive challenger, cannabis dispensary owner Lonnie Affrime, but he didn’t file petitions to run.
2nd district (Atlantic, Ocean, Cumberland, Cape May, Gloucester, Salem): Four Democrats filed for the right to challenge Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), who represents a conservative South Jersey district that could inch onto the competitive playing field if Democrats are having a great year.
Democratic voters will decide among civil rights attorney Tim Alexander (who ran for the same seat in 2022 and 2024, and who has the lion’s share of party support this year), former USAID official Bayly Winder, Cape May Mayor Zack Mullock, and local activist Terri Reese; Reese faced a petition challenge from a little-known individual seemingly tied to Winder, but was able to keep her spot on the ballot. One other Democrat who had announced a campaign, math teacher Bill Finn, did not file to run.
Van Drew, meanwhile, will go without intra-party opposition for the second cycle in a row. After switching parties in 2019 and initially facing some resistance within the local GOP, Van Drew is now about as ingrained in the pro-Trump Republican Party as it’s possible to get.
3rd district (Burlington, Monmouth, Mercer): Rep. Herb Conaway (D-Delran) was originally going to face off against Lisa McCormick ally Shawn Scott in the Democratic primary for the 3rd district, but that’s a race that hasn’t come to pass.
What will still be contested in June, though, is the GOP primary for the Democratic-leaning district. Attorney Michael McGuire, sales professional Jason Cullen, and former gubernatorial candidate Justin Barbera all filed to run; McGuire is the pick of the Monmouth and Mercer GOP, while Cullen has party backing in Burlington.
4th district (Ocean, Monmouth): Despite scattered online rumors prior to filing day, Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) filed with plenty of petition signatures – 2,214, to be precise – to make the ballot. No Republicans will oppose Smith’s bid for a record-setting 24th term in Congress after a longshot primary challenger, Rob Canfield, failed to gather enough signatures.
Only two of Smith’s Democratic challengers survived petitioning season: communications professional Rachel Peace (who has party support in both 4th district counties) and electrician John Blake (who beat back a petition challenge). Three other would-be candidates in the dark-red district – professor Julie Flynn, activist Bob English, and democratic socialist Peter Linardakis – didn’t make it onto the ballot.
5th district (Bergen, Sussex, Passaic): Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly)’s moderate politics have long made him a foil for his party’s left wing, but his progressive critics have proven incapable of mounting any real effort to beat him. For the third cycle in a row, Gottheimer will win the 5th district’s Democratic primary uncontested.
Republicans were set to have a primary for the light-blue district, between corporate consultant Sean Kirrane and businessman John Aslanian, but Aslanian withdrew from the race after Kirrane’s campaign challenged his 549 petition signatures; given that Kirrane had every local party endorsement, the primary may not have been very competitive regardless. Another Republican candidate, Sandy Gajapathy, didn’t get the necessary 500 signatures to file.
6th district (Middlesex, Monmouth): Two Democratic primary challengers will take on long-serving Rep. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch), who could be in line to chair the House Energy & Commerce Committee again next Congress: progressive activist John Hsu, who ran against Pallone two years ago, and investment analyst Katie Bansil, a political newcomer.
Assuming he wins, Pallone will then go on to a general election against former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services worker Hillary Herzig, the lone Republican to file for the reliably blue seat.
7th district (Union, Somerset, Hunterdon, Morris, Warren, Sussex): After hitting a peak of nine candidates, the Democratic field against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) has been whittled back down and now stands at just four: former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett, businessman Brian Varela, ICU doctor Tina Shah, and former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth.
Two of their erstwhile opponents, climate scientist Megan O’Rourke and professor Beth Adubato, both ended their campaigns within hours of the filing deadline. Three other Democrats (Greg Vartan, Sara Sooy, and Vale Mendoza) had dropped out earlier in the cycle.
Based on party endorsements and fundraising, Bennett looks like the frontrunner, but Democrats are likely to make a serious play to beat Kean in the competitive district no matter who their nominee is. Kean, who got Donald Trump’s endorsement early on in the cycle, doesn’t have a primary opponent and can focus all of his attention on November.
8th district (Hudson, Union, Essex): The primary showdown between Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) and former Jersey City Board of Education President Mussab Ali has been looming for months, and filing day merely confirmed that there won’t be any other Democrats in the race to distract from the main affair.
What was more surprising, however, is that no Republicans filed to run; local GOP leaders had a candidate, social worker Jashan Lucas, but he couldn’t get enough signatures together before the deadline. Republicans wouldn’t have won the heavily Democratic district regardless, but unless they mount a write-in campaign in June, it’ll be the first time since 2008 that a major party leaves a New Jersey House seat uncontested.
9th district (Bergen, Passaic, Hudson): Filing day didn’t change the status quo in the 9th district, which Republicans are targeting after it narrowly voted for Donald Trump last year; Clifton Councilwoman Rosie Pino and attorney Tiffany Burress each has party support in different parts of the district, and Burress easily overcame a longshot petition challenge from Pino’s campaign.
Incumbent Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon), meanwhile, is set to sail through her primary without a challenger; Paterson Mayor André Sayegh considered a campaign last year but decided against it, and no one else stepped up in his place. That means that Pou, who was placed on the 9th district ballot late in the 2024 cycle by party leaders after Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) died in office, may serve two terms in Congress without facing primary voters once.
10th district (Essex, Union, Hudson): Any chance that Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), who won a special election to succeed the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark) in 2024, would face a serious primary this year probably died when her indictment at the hands of the Trump administration made her a national liberal hero.
One Democrat stepped up to run against her all the same: Lawrence Poster, a political newcomer about whom basically nothing is known. Republican Carmen Bucco, a tailor and perennial candidate, is running for New Jersey’s bluest district for a third time.
11th district (Morris, Essex, Passaic): Later this month, Democrat Analilia Mejia and Republican Joe Hathaway will face off in a special election for the remainder of now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s House term.
A month and a half later, they’ll face voters again in the primary elections for a full term. Hathaway, a councilman and former mayor in Randolph, is unopposed, but Mejia, a longtime progressive activist, will face three foes: Chatham Borough Councilman Justin Strickland, former Morristown Mayor and perennial candidate Donald Cresitello, and tech engineer Joseph Lewis.
Winning that primary shouldn’t be too difficult for Mejia, especially after she came from behind in the February special primary to beat several better-known and better-funded opponents. There was talk of a serious primary challenge to Mejia in June, perhaps from third-place finisher and ex-Lieutenant Gov. Tahesha Way, but it never materialized.
12th district (Middlesex, Somerset, Mercer, Union): The 12th district’s floodgates opened the minute Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) announced her retirement, and no fewer than 13 Democrats have filed to take her solidly blue Central Jersey seat.
The contenders (deep breath): surgeon and Army veteran Adam Hamawy, Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp, Princeton professor Samuel Wang, attorney Squire Servance, progressive activist Sue Altman, former Energy Department official Jay Vaingankar, Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-Trenton), technology consultant Sujit Singh, Somerset County Commissioner Shanel Robinson (D-Franklin), entrepreneur Elijah Dixon, former Middlesex Borough Councilman Matt Adams, East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen, and fitness studio owner Kyle Little.
They will not be joined, however, by Millstone Borough Mayor Raymond Heck, community advocate Mike Anderson, housing policy researcher Iziah Thompson, and Army veteran and anesthesiologist Rick Morales, none of whom made the ballot. (Wang and Mapp also tried to kick Altman off the ballot for a series of petition issues, but she still had more than 700 valid signatures after a marathon challenge hearing, leaving her spot secure.)
Who’s the favorite to win? Reynolds-Jackson, Cohen, Robinson, and Mapp all have support in their home turf, but other candidates like Altman, Hamawy, and Vaingankar have viable paths to the nomination that don’t rely on party endorsements. In other words, it’s anyone’s game for now.
A lone Republican also filed to run: perennial candidate Gregg Mele, who is set to at last receive a major-party nomination after years of trying.
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