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Will the margin of victory for Analilia Mejia in the 2026 NJ-11 special election be above 26%? — Analilia Mejia, ≥26%

KXPRIMARYMOV-HOUSENJ11SPECIAL26-AMEJ-P63 · Elections · 2026-04-21
2%
Agent
4%
Market Price
-2.0%
Edge
95%
Confidence
Volume: 84,208
Days to resolution: 360
Markets in event: 9
Final Rationale
The election already occurred on April 16, 2026, with Mejia winning by approximately 20 points (60-40), well short of the 26% threshold required for YES. The Devil's Advocate raised no substantive challenges, noting my slight conservatism above the market floor was reasonable given residual certification uncertainty. The market at 1% (floor) reflects effective resolution based on known results; my 2% barely diverges and simply preserves tiny uncertainty about late-counted ballots shifting the margin by 6+ points, which is essentially impossible. I defer close to market while keeping a sliver above the floor.
Price vs. prediction
How the market moved after the agent's call. Solid blue line is the actual market price; dashed line is the agent's static forecast at $t{=}0$.
$n = 58$ follow-ups
1. Planner Opus · Fermi decomposition + tool plan
Tools chosen: article_search web_search kalshi_data wikipedia_lookup code_execution
Sub-questions (Fermi decomposition)
  1. Will Analilia Mejia win the 2026 NJ-11 special election? (w=0.35)
  2. Will NJ-11 be a heavily Democratic-leaning district in the 2026 special election cycle (D+20 or more)? (w=0.30)
  3. Will Mejia's margin of victory exceed 26% if she wins (i.e., a landslide rather than a competitive win)? (w=0.35)
Planner reasoning
NJ-11 (New Jersey's 11th congressional district) covers parts of Essex and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey, historically a strong Democratic district. Mikie Sherrill vacating the seat (she ran for NJ governor) triggered a special election. The key question is whether Mejia's margin will be ≥26%. Key analytical steps: 1. **Confirm the special election details**: When is the special election scheduled? Has a date been set? The resolution is in April 2027, suggesting the election itself may occur in late 2026 or early 2027. 2. **District partisan lean**: NJ-11 has a Cook PVI of approximately D+10 to D+15. Sherrill won by roughly 17-22% in general elections. In special elections, Democratic enthusiasm and turnout dynamics can differ significantly from generals. 3. **Threshold analysis**: The 26% threshold is relatively high for NJ-11. Sherrill's general election margins were typically 17-22%, suggesting 26% would require an unusually large Democratic wave or a very weak Republican opponent. 4. **Special election dynamics**: Special elections often have lower turnout and can be unpredictable. In strongly blue areas with high Democratic enthusiasm (e.g., anti-Trump sentiment), margins can exceed general election norms. In low-enthusiasm environments, they can compress. 5. **Temporal considerations**: With 360 days until resolution, the special election itself likely hasn't occurred yet (or is imminent). Need to check current status — has the election date been set? Have results been announced? The question resolves YES only if Mejia wins AND her margin is ≥26%. If the district's PVI and recent history suggest margins closer to 17-22%, the 26% threshold represents roughly the 80th-85th percentile of plausible Democratic margins. The probability depends heavily on: (a) whether Mejia actually wins, (b) how favorable the political environment is for Democrats in a post-2025 cycle, and (c) quality of the Republican opponent.
2. Research Parallel tool calls · legacy v2
ToolStatusTimeItemsSummary
article_search OK 0.1s -
web_search OK 44.4s -
kalshi_data OK 2.1s -
wikipedia_lookup OK 2.8s -
code_execution OK 0.0s -
3. Evidence Synthesis Sonnet · 9 items · legacy v2
#StrengthCredibilityDirectionSourceClaimPriced In
1 STRONG 95 ↑ UP web_search Analilia Mejia won the NJ-11 special election on April 16, 2026, defeating Republican Joe Hathaway. The AP called the race just seven minutes after polls closed. Yes
2 STRONG 90 ↑ UP wikipedia_lookup Wikipedia confirms Analilia Mejia is now the representative for NJ-11, having taken office April 20, 2026, after winning the special election on April 16, 2026. Yes
3 STRONG 88 ↓ DOWN web_search NJ-11 had approximately 65,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, and Kamala Harris won the district by 9 points in 2024 while Sherrill won by 15 points in the 2025 governor's race — suggesting D+9 to D+15 lean, not D+20. Yes
4 MODERATE 80 ↑ UP web_search Mejia overperformed Kamala Harris's 9-point margin by ~12 points, suggesting the effective Democratic advantage in the special election environment was approximately D+21, potentially crossing the D+20 threshold. Yes
5 STRONG 93 ↓ DOWN web_search With nearly all votes counted, Mejia led 60% to 40%, a margin of approximately 20 percentage points — well below the 26% threshold required for YES resolution. Yes
6 STRONG 92 ↓ DOWN web_search The reported margin was approximately 20 points (77,620 to 52,122 votes), which falls short of the 26% threshold by roughly 6 percentage points. Yes
7 MODERATE 78 ↓ DOWN web_search Other 2026 special elections nationally have seen Democratic overperformances of 13–25 points vs. 2024 baseline; Mejia's ~12-point overperformance of Harris's 9-point margin is at the lower end of this range, consistent with a final margin near 20–21%. Yes
8 WEAK 40 NEUTRAL code_execution Historical base rate analysis of NJ-11 general election margins estimates that roughly 30% of comparable elections have margins ≥26%, with a mean around 23% — but this was computed on general elections, not special elections with confirmed ~20% result. No
9 STRONG 95 ↓ DOWN kalshi_data Kalshi market for Mejia ≥26% margin is priced at 1%, stuck at floor with zero movement over 5 days and high volume (15,008 avg daily contracts), indicating the market has essentially resolved NO. Yes
Information Gaps
  • Final certified vote totals are not yet available — the ~20% margin is based on near-complete but not fully certified results; a small chance exists that remaining ballots shift the margin closer to 26%, though this is extremely unlikely given the gap.
  • No data on provisional ballot counts or mail-in ballots still outstanding that could marginally affect the final margin.
  • No clarity on whether the question's resolution threshold of 26% is strictly based on final certified results or projected/called results.
Key Uncertainties
  • Whether any outstanding votes (provisional, remaining mail-in) could move the margin from ~20% to ≥26% — mathematically very unlikely given the scale of the gap (~6 percentage points) and near-complete vote count.
  • The exact definition of 'margin of victory' used for resolution: if it is Mejia% minus Hathaway%, the current ~20-point gap clearly falls below 26%.
  • Whether the Kalshi market price of 1% reflects post-result settlement pricing or pre-result uncertainty — given the election occurred April 16, 2026 and data is 5 days old, the 1% price almost certainly reflects known results.
Market Context
Price: 0.01 · 7d: +0.00 · 30d: +0.00
Volume: HIGH · Depth: UNKNOWN
Reliability: HIGH — price at 1% floor with high volume and no movement strongly signals the market has effectively resolved NO based on known election results showing ~20% margin, well below the 26% threshold
4. Independent Forecaster Opus · No market price · legacy v2 Did NOT see market price
Independent estimate: 2% (95% confidence)
base rate
2%
95% conf
evidence driven
2%
95% conf
contrarian
3%
95% conf
Spread
1pp
Low disagreement
sq1: Will Analilia Mejia win the 2026 NJ-11 special election?
99%
Multiple sources confirm Mejia already won on April 16, 2026, and took office April 20, 2026. This is a settled fact.
sq2: Will NJ-11 be a heavily Democratic-leaning district (D+20 or more)?
35%
Underlying PVI is D+9 to D+15 based on Harris 2024 and Sherrill 2025. Special election overperformance brought effective margin near D+20-21, borderline. However, this sub-question is somewhat tangential since we already know the actual result.
sq3: Will Mejia's margin exceed 26% given she wins?
2%
Near-complete results show ~20 point margin (60-40). For the final certified margin to reach 26%, remaining ballots would need to break overwhelmingly for Mejia at an implausible rate. Essentially settled at ~20%.
Show full reasoning trace
base rate: Historical NJ-11 Democratic margins were 17-22% under Sherrill. 26% is at the high end of the distribution, roughly 20-30% base rate for a D+10-15 district in a favorable environment.
evidence updates: The election has already occurred with a confirmed ~20-point margin (60-40), well below 26%. This overwhelming evidence collapses uncertainty to near-zero for YES.
combination method: Conditional: needs both win (confirmed ~100%) and margin ≥26% (~2%). Product ≈ 2%.
final: Result is effectively known: Mejia won by ~20 points, short of the 26% threshold. Probability ~2% accounting for tiny uncertainty from uncounted/certified ballots.
ensemble: {'ensemble_count': 3, 'perspectives': {'base_rate': {'p_yes': 0.02, 'confidence': 0.95}, 'evidence_driven': {'p_yes': 0.02, 'confidence': 0.95}, 'contrarian': {'p_yes': 0.03, 'confidence': 0.95}}, 'spread': 0.01, 'individual_p_yes': {'base_rate': 0.02, 'evidence_driven': 0.02, 'contrarian': 0.03}}
5. Devil's Advocate Sonnet · legacy v2 Market price revealed
Challenges
  1. Forecast of 2.3% is slightly above market floor of 1%, which is reasonable given small residual uncertainty about certification. No significant reasoning flaws detected.
Market comparison: Forecaster: 2.3%, Market: 1%. Divergence is minimal (1.3pp) and in fact the forecaster is slightly more conservative/uncertain than the market, which is reasonable given information gaps about final certification. The forecast is well-calibrated.
6. Aggregator Opus · final calibrated forecast
2% (95% confidence)
The election already occurred on April 16, 2026, with Mejia winning by approximately 20 points (60-40), well short of the 26% threshold required for YES. The Devil's Advocate raised no substantive challenges, noting my slight conservatism above the market floor was reasonable given residual certification uncertainty. The market at 1% (floor) reflects effective resolution based on known results; my 2% barely diverges and simply preserves tiny uncertainty about late-counted ballots shifting the margin by 6+ points, which is essentially impossible. I defer close to market while keeping a sliver above the floor.