Rep. Nellie Pou, a Democrat who won her first election to Congress in 2024 even as her district swung to the right, is facing increasing attacks from progressives and Republicans as she gears up for her first reelection fight next year.
Republicans believe Pou, who succeeded Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. after Pascrell died last August, is the most vulnerable House Democrat in New Jersey, and have targeted her over her votes against GOP spending bills and for her opposition to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Progressive activists, meanwhile, are criticizing her for joining other Congress members on a recent trip to Israel paid for by a pro-Israel lobbying group.
Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, noted that incumbents are easiest to topple during their first reelection campaigns, and Republicans have a slim majority in the House of Representatives that they want to retain after next year’s midterm elections.
Rasmussen added that Pou’s vulnerability was exposed last November when she won her election by a relatively small margin.
Pou defeated Republican Billy Prempeh by five points. The last time Pascrell sought reelection in a presidential election year, he defeated Prempeh by 34 points.
At a time when Rasmussen believes laying low would be the safest way for Pou to keep her seat, he said her trip to Israel made her an even bigger target.
“It’s just the icing on the cake,” he said. “This melting pot of the district, it adds all these layers of opportunity.”
In a statement to the New Jersey Monitor, Pou spokesman Mark Greenbaum defended the junket by saying members of Congress “face a responsibility to be in the room where decisions are made.”
“Congresswoman Pou took the opportunity to meet with decisionmakers face-to-face and there pressed for a surge in aid to address the humanitarian crisis, the freedom for all remaining hostages, the path to a two-state solution, and a clear stated plan for ending the war in Gaza and rebuilding to begin,” Greenbaum said.
Selaedin Maksut, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, warned Pou will lose key support if she doesn’t stop accepting support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — one of its affiliates paid for the trip to Israel — and vocally support the Palestinian community in Pou’s 9th District, which includes Paterson neighborhoods with significant numbers of Palestinian residents.
“Even in the Republican Party, we are seeing more and more people come out very vocally and boldly against support of Israel. The blind support that our government has cannot be justified,” said Maksut.
The 9th District, which includes parts of Bergen, Hudson, and Passaic counties, has historically been a solidly Democratic one. But Trump won the district by about one point (in 2020, Biden won it by nearly 20 points), a win fueled in part by support from Latino voters. The district is 41% Hispanic, census data says.
Pro-Palestine protestors who gathered near Pou’s office last week demanded she stop taking money from pro-Israel lobbyists and sign on to the Block the Bombs Act. That bill would block the transfer and sale of certain U.S. weapons to Israel unless Israel provides assurance that it will comply with U.S. and international human rights laws.
Pou’s visit to Israel came just after Israel officials approved a military occupation of Gaza City, and as Paterson residents grappled with disrupted water service and citywide boil advisories after a massive water main break. Hafsa Habehh of American Muslims for Palestine’s New Jersey chapter said Pou should have remained home to deal with that crisis.
“Lawmakers are supposed to spend their August recess in their communities to engage with constituents and work in their districts,” Habehh said.
Meanwhile, the attacks on Pou from Republicans are relentless. The National Republican Congressional Committee sent 11 press releases in the first three weeks of August attacking Pou as an “out-of-touch” Democrat, “clueless,” and a supporter of the far-left.
“Pou won’t be squatting in this Trump-won district much longer,” one says.
