NJ primary election guide: Primary Election Day is Tuesday, June 2, 2026

NJ Primary election

The 2026 closed primary election in New Jersey is on Tuesday, June 2, 2026.

In the closed primaries, voters who have registered with the Democratic or Republican party will be able to participate in the electoral process. Though, voters will need to check their registration status and familiarize themselves with the issues.

When was the last day to register to vote in the New Jersey Primary?

Tuesday, May 12, 2026, was the last day to register to vote in the New Jersey primary elections.

Click here to check your registration status.

For information on how to register, visit the state’s Division of Elections, here.

When is the 2026 New Jersey Primary?

Polls for the New Jersey primary election open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2, 2026.

Check your voter registration and find out where you can cast your vote.

New Jersey doesn’t have open primaries, so you must be registered to the party which you would like to pick a candidate for. The closed primary means Democrats can’t vote in Republican primaries and vice versa and independents can’t vote in primaries for either major party.

All voters, however can vote on ballot questions, constitutional amendments and any special elections that may be on the ballot.

Also, come the general election, to be held on Nov. 3, 2026, voters can vote for any candidate they want to support, regardless of party.

The last day to register to vote or switch parties was Tuesday, May 12, 2026.

Click here for details on getting registered to vote in New Jersey ahead of the November general election.

How can voters participate in early in-person voting in New Jersey?

Voters in New Jersey were able to participate in early in-person voting.

Early in-person voting for the upcoming elections began on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, and was held through Sunday, May 31, 2026.

The option allowed registered voters to cast ballots in-person, using a voting machine, ahead of the primary elections.

The New Jersey Department of State has put together a list of locations available for early in-person voting at counties throughout the state.

These locations opened from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

For more details, click here.

Want to vote by mail in the primary election?

Anyone can vote-by-mail in New Jersey as long as they complete an application in order to do so.

However, Tuesday, May 26, 2026, was the last day to request a mail-in ballot by mail for the upcoming primaries.

But, if you plan to request a mail-in ballot in person, you still have until 3 p.m. on Monday, June 1, 2026.

After voters complete a vote-by-mail ballot, state officials said voters can return them in one of three ways; mail it back, place it in their home county’s secure ballot drop box location or return it to their home county’s Board of Elections office.

The deadlines to return ballots vary depending on how a voter plans to participate in the elections:

• Mail: It must be postmarked on or before 8 p.m. on Election Day and be received by the voter’s home county’s Board of Elections on or before six days after Election Day.
• Secure Ballot Drop Box: Ballots must be placed in voter’s home county’s secure ballot drop boxes by 8 p.m. on Election Day. A list of secure ballot drop box locations can be found here.
• Board of Elections Office: Voters can also deliver ballots in person to their home county’s Board of Elections office by 8 p.m. on Election Day. For a list of county election offices and contact details for each, click here.

Who is on the ballot?

New Jersey Senator

Democratic New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is running for re-election as one of the state’s representatives in the Congressional Senate. He will be facing the winner of a field of Republican challengers in the upcoming general elections.

• Cory Booker – Booker, a Democrat, has served as a senator for New Jersey since 2013. He grew up in northern New Jersey and received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University before he went on to study at the University of Oxford, and then Yale Law School, where he graduated in 1997. He still lives in Newark, where he previously served as mayor. His website claims he has “dedicated his life to fighting for those who have been left out, left behind, or left without a voice.”
• Robert Lebovics – Running as a Republican challenger to Booker, Lebovics — who calls himself Dr. Bob on his campaign site — is an otolaryngologist and surgeon who specializes in infectious and inflammatory disorders. He has no experience in politics aside from previous losses in races for State Senator and Englewood City Council. But, he explains on his website that “he helps people breathe and helps them live a better life. That’s exactly why he’s running for U.S. Senate.”
• Justin Murphy – Murphy, an attorney from Tabernacle, who is running as a Republican challenger to Booker in the primary, has no prior experience as an elected official. But, on his campaign site, he pledges to keep the NJ Pinelands “pristine,” to keep the Jersey Shore “pollution and windmill free,” and make parental rights and medical freedom national priorities, if elected. He also notes that, if elected, “small business owners will have no better friend in Washington.”
• Richard Tabor – Tabor, who served in the Army and the National Guard in Iraq and was previously a New Jersey State Trooper, is running as a Republican in the primary race for New Jersey senator. He also founded the nonprofit, New Life Direction in Elizabeth, that works to support at-risk youth. His campaign site says Tabor entered the race to “give New Jersey a fighter who understands real life, real pain and real responsibility because New Jersey doesn’t need another career politician.”
• Alex Zdan – Zdan is a former News 12 New Jersey reporter and, his campaign site claims, he’s an investigative journalist who anchors special presentations for TV Asia. He claims to be running for the Republican nomination in the New Jersey race for senator as “an outsider fighting to hold the line in New Jersey.” He previously ran to represent the garden state in the U.S. Senate in 2024, but he backed out at that time to “avoid a long, contentious and expensive Senate primary,” he said on social media.

New Jersey U.S. House elections

There will be elections for every one of New Jersey’s 12 members of the House of Representatives.

However, the race for New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District may be one of the most watched.

Here, in a district that covers much of South Jersey — including all of Atlantic, Cape May, Salem and Cumberland counties as well as parts of Gloucester and Ocean counties — several Democratic candidates are looking to unseat incumbent Republican representative Jeff Van Drew.

• Jeff Van Drew – Republican representative Van Drew has sat atop the 2nd district since 2019. Elected as a Democrat, Van Drew famously switched parties to become a Republican before he was re-elected in 2020. Van Drew also previously served in the New Jersey General Assembly and New Jersey State Senate. His campaign site claims he has “earned a reputation as a strong advocate for southern New Jersey municipalities, but especially for veterans, senior citizens and consumers.”
• Tim Alexander – Running as a Democratic challenger looking to unseat Van Drew in the general elections, Alexander is an attorney who claims on his campaign site that he never thought he’d run for office. But, that changed after 2024 when he saw the impact of President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” on the New Jersey community. On his official site he claims he hopes to be a politician that puts people over politics.
• Zack Mullock – Democratic candidate Mullock is the mayor of Cape May and says, on his campaign site, that he entered the race because he felt compelled to serve South Jersey residents. And, his site claims, Mullock wants to ensure South Jersey residents are represented by someone born and raised in the community as “Washington is too often driven by corruption, special interests, and profiteering that leave working families squeezed and unheard. Zack is focused on the issues that matter most here at home: affordability, access to healthcare, responsible energy policy, and protecting our environment.”
• Terri Reese – Reese, a Democratic candidate seeking to replace Van Drew, is a former product manager, caregiver, activist and single mother who says on her campaign page that she hopes to be a candidate “who answers to the people instead of big-money donors, and who doesn’t kiss the ring of a lawless president.”
• Bayly Winder – In throwing his hat in the ring as a Democratic challenger in the 2nd Congressional District, Winder’s campaign site claims the fourth generation New Jersey resident and former employee for the U.S. Department of State, wants to be a candidate that supports families and small businesses over politics and special interests. If elected, his site says, Winder is “ready to fight for South Jersey to lower costs, grow our economy, and protect our rights and our Democracy.”

Along with these races, New Jersey voters will nominate candidates for both chambers of Congress in a state primary on Tuesday, including in one key battleground district that could decide control of the U.S. House.

Republicans hold a narrow House majority but face a tough midterm environment in which the party holding the White House typically loses congressional seats. Although Republicans may see gains from mid-decade redistricting in several states and from a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling threatening Democratic-held majority-Black districts across the South, winning competitive seats like New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District remains central to both parties’ strategies to hold or retake the chamber.

U.S. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is running for a third term in the 7th District and is unopposed for the Republican nomination. His father, Thomas Kean Sr., served two terms as New Jersey’s Republican governor in the 1980s.

He will face the winner of a competitive Democratic primary featuring former healthcare executive Rebecca Bennett, former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, physician Tina Shah and entrepreneur and business owner Brian Varela. Bennett leads the Democratic field in fundraising and had the most campaign funds available heading into the final stretch of the campaign.

Kean’s whereabouts have been a question on the campaign trail and in the halls of Congress.

On April 27, he released a statement saying that he was addressing “a personal medical issue” and that he expected to return “very soon.” As of Monday, he had not voted on any legislation since March 5, missing more than 100 consecutive votes.

The 7th Congressional District in northern New Jersey stretches from Staten Island to the Pennsylvania border. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump narrowly carried the district in 2024, edging Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, 49.6% to 48.5%.

Crowded field in the 12th Congressional District Primary

Meanwhile, in the 12th Congressional District, which covers parts of Mercer County, including Ewing, Hopewell Borough, Hopewell Township, Pennington, Princeton, Trenton and West Windsor, a crowded field of candidates will look to replace incumbent Bonnie Watson Coleman who announced her retirement.

The Democratic candidates include the following:

• Matt Adams
• Sue Altman
• Brad Cohen
• Elijah Dixon
• Dr. Adam Hamawy
• Kyle Little
• Adrian Mapp
• Verlina Reynolds-Jackson
• Shanel Robinson
• Squire Servance
• Sujit Singh
• Jay Vaingankar
• Sam Wang

Meanwhile, Gregg Mele will run unopposed in the Republican primary.