Congresswoman-Elect LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, won the special election to succeed the late Donald Payne Jr. in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District

Despite talk of the Democratic Party facing a slippage in Black voter support, particularly in urban areas, the special election on Tuesday night in a majority black Congressional District based in Newark failed to demonstrate the racial realignment that some have claimed is underway. Democrat LaMonica McIver, the President of the Newark Municipal Council, easily defeated Republican Carmen Bucco, a perennial candidate, by an 81% – 15% margin to succeed the late Congressman Democrat Donald Payne Jr. This represented a slight overperformance of Biden’s 81% – 18% margin in the district in 2020 and matched Hillary Clinton’s 82% – 16% showing in 2016. The district, which has a voting age population that is 53% Black and 20% Hispanic, is majority working class and non-college educated. If Kamala Harris is able to perform similarly well in demographically analogous areas in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, places that swung right from 2016 to 2020, it could give her the upper hand in both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Putting the Presidential Race aside McIver, who is set to be sworn in in the coming weeks. McIver was endorsed by the Progressive Caucus and is expected to be a reliable vote for Democratic leadership. She faces Bucco in a rematch in November and is on course to win handedly once more.