The race to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell is all but set, with Democratic leaders planning to back state Sen. Nellie Pou (D-Passaic) at Thursday’s county committee convention.
They’re poised to tap Pou, a longtime state legislator, to replace Pascrell on the November ballot. Support for Pou comes after she locked up key endorsements from party leaders– including Gov. Phil Murphy. And after she knocked out three Democratic rivals who were also running. The last among them was Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly (D-Passaic) who dropped out late Wednesday.
The 9th Congressional District is dominated by Democrats and the winner of Thursday’s convention will be heavily favored to defeat Republican nominee Billy Prempeh in the fall. If elected, Pou would make history as the first Hispanic woman to represent New Jersey in Congress. She would also add to the state’s overall female representation in the House, where women now hold two of the 12 seats.
“It would be a big moment for women’s representation in Congress from New Jersey,” said Jean Sinzdak, associate director at the Center for Women and Politics. “We’ve never had four women serving in our congressional delegation. The high-water mark is two, which we currently have. So, we had already been talking about how the likely Congresswoman [LaMonica] McIver would be the third and that would be a record. And now it looks like we’ll go to at least four and there’s still another competitive race. The Sue Waltman race against Tom Kane is, while likely Republican, it is competitive. So we could potentially even get to five this year,” she said.
“We know that from the research that women bring their own perspectives and life experiences to policymaking. So having diversity and representation is fantastic,” Sinzdak added. “It would mean a lot to women in New Jersey. They would look at their congressional delegation and see people who look like them. We also talk about the role modeling effect a lot. It means that young people. will see a more diverse delegation in US Congress from their state, which means they’ll look at these women and men who are serving and say, hey, there are people who look like me.”
