Rep. LaMonica McIver, the Newark Democrat who remains under federal indictment over a May 2025 confrontation with immigration officers, won re-election on Tuesday. She defeated Republican Carmen Bucco in New Jersey's 10th Congressional District, a rematch of races he also lost in 2024.
The New Jersey Globe made its own projection of the result, and the Associated Press projected a win as well. What makes the outcome notable is that voters returned to Congress a member whose criminal case has not been resolved.
McIver denies wrongdoing and calls the prosecution politically motivated, according to reporting by the New York Post and the New Jersey Monitor. Those are her claims. The research behind this story turned up no official statement or court filing responding to them, and no ruling on the merits of the charge.
The Rematch
With roughly a third of ballots counted at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, McIver held about 86 percent of the vote to Bucco's 13 percent, according to a New York Post report. We could not read the Post directly and relied on a repost of it, so treat the figures with caution. They are partial returns, and final totals were not available.
The money pointed the same way. The Globe reported that McIver raised $2.5 million for the race, while Bucco, a Kenilworth businessman, raised $8,931. The Globe also reported that both the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections rated the seat safe Democratic.
Bucco also lost to McIver in the September 2024 special election and the November 2024 general election, the Globe reported.
McIver, 40, first won the seat to finish the term of Rep. Donald Payne Jr., who died on April 24, 2024. Tuesday's win gives her a second full term beginning in January, the New Jersey Monitor reported. The Post noted she gave birth to her second child just weeks before Election Day, and the Globe reported she was the first New Jersey member of Congress to give birth while in office.
What Happened at Delaney Hall
The case dates to May 9, 2025, when McIver and fellow New Jersey Democrats Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez visited Delaney Hall, the immigration detention center in Newark, for an oversight visit, according to the Globe.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka arrived separately. According to the Globe, he was first let in, then ordered out, and officers tried to arrest him. The Globe reported that prosecutors charged McIver with striking officers. A trespassing charge against Baraka was dropped.
The New Jersey Monitor described the charge against McIver as forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers. The Post described it as assaulting, resisting, impeding or interfering. The Post also called it an "ICE case," which is its own framing. Delaney Hall is an ICE facility, and the charge involves federal officers. An indictment is an accusation, not a finding of guilt.
The Immunity Fight
McIver's lawyers argue that her arrest violated the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause, according to the Globe and the Post.
A snippet from MSN, which we could not read in full, says a three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled she is not immune from prosecution. The timing of that ruling is unconfirmed. Her lawyers have asked the full 3rd Circuit to rehear the case. Whether the court has acted on that request is unknown, and accounts of the filing differ somewhat in how they describe it.
What Comes Next
McIver is due to be sworn in for her new term in January 2027. Still ahead are a ruling on the rehearing petition and the question of a trial date, which should be checked against the court docket.
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