Tom Malinowski is a Worthy Successor to Mikie Sherrill

In New Jersey we are blessed with elections every year – which means that for those of us who choose to be involved in campaigns, we barely get a chance to exhale in November before the process starts up again.

This year, with only two months between the Gubernatorial election and the primary election for Mikie Sherrill’s replacement, those of us who live in the 11th Congressional District of New Jersey have had to skip the exhale and start getting to know what our options are.
It has been gratifying to learn about the race’s 12 Democratic candidates through meet-and-greets, candidate forums, and through viewing or listening to interviews that they have done. The Morris County Democratic Committee provided a great service by filming interviews with all of the candidates and making them publicly available. They can be found at this link:
https://morrisdems.org/2025/12/08/2025-cd11-special-election/

The wealth of talent within this group of 12 is impressive and exciting. Candidates who I had never heard of before November turned out to be potential super-stars. Others who have been involved in New Jersey politics showed new and interesting sides of themselves as candidates. It speaks well for our Democratic party that there are so many impressive options.
A few things have led me to choose Tom Malinowski above the other candidates as our best option.

1. My number one priority right now is protecting our Democracy from a lawless president and the cowardly members of his party who refuse to stand up to him. Too many Democrats don’t see that Democracy and every value that our country was built on are under threat, and that threat is not going away. Malinowski does.
2. Just as Mikie Sherrill was exceptional at helping her constituents and the communities she represents in New Jersey, Malinowski demonstrated the same as a Member of Congress in District 7.
3. An effective representative has to understand government and know how it works – including how to leverage whatever power elected officials have, even in the minority party. Malinowski served in Congress when Trump was president the first time, and he was part of the skillful coalition that managed to limit the damage that could be done.
4. Like Senator Andy Kim, Malinowski is fed up with the soft – and not so soft – corruption that is New Jersey politics (amongst both Democrats and Republicans) and will actively fight against it.
5. Malinowski deeply cares about making government effective for the people – and knows how to do it.

The last issue is one that I am incredibly passionate about. On the Democratic side, most of us understand that government has a role to play - in protecting our most vulnerable, advancing science, making sure consumer products and food are safe, ensuring the air we breathe and the water we drink are clean, and in maintaining public safety. However, doing this in a way that is efficient and effective hasn’t been a priority for decades. Democrats tend to heap regulations on top of regulations to a point that paralyzes small businesses, hampers our economy, and bewilders our sick and disabled just when they are most vulnerable.

Both Mikie Sherrill and Tom Malinowski had great district offices to help their constituents navigate byzantine federal government agencies – but the fact that that is necessary speaks to an underlying issue that Democrats need to take seriously.

I sincerely hope that the many other qualified Democratic candidates for New Jersey’s 11th congressional districts stay involved in government, but for this seat I am voting Malinowski for Congress.

Jocelyn Mathiasen
Jocelyn Mathiasen is a 3-term member of the Chatham Borough Council and has spent over 20 years helping governments be more efficient, effective, and accountable. She holds a Master of Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.