Analilia Mejia’s lead in the special Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 11th congressional district now stands at 676 votes, giving her a 28.9% to 27.8% lead over her closest competition, former congressman Tom Malinowski.

The race remains uncalled for now, and will likely remain so through the weekend. Essex and Morris Counties released updated vote counts this afternoon, while Passaic County has not done so since last night.

Per periodic reports, Essex County still has at least 1,868 vote-by-mail ballots and 1,171 provisional ballots left outstanding, while Morris County has at least 440 vote-by-mail ballots and 694 provisional ballots; not all provisional ballots will ultimately be counted. It’s less clear what’s still left to count in Passaic County, as the county only lists 19 uncounted vote-by-mail ballots and has not yet published any data on provisional ballots.

Some of the uncounted ballots in each county are from GOP voters rather than Democrats, so the number of ballots left to be counted in the Democratic primary is lower than those numbers would imply, though the uncontested Republican primary naturally had much lower turnout.

Malinowski did best among vote-by-mail voters, especially in Morris County, and may make up some ground via those ballots, though late-counted ballots of all stripes seem to be going less in his favor than those cast and counted earlier. And given Mejia’s strength among Election Day voters, provisional ballots may tilt her way. 

Breaking the district’s results down by town, Mejia did best in the progressive, diverse hubs of Essex County, winning towns like Maplewood, South Orange, Bloomfield, Belleville, and Nutley, usually by sizable margins. But she also proved to have unexpected strength elsewhere in the district too, winning Morris County towns like East Hanover and Lincoln Park that many thought would be part of Malinowski’s base.

Malinowski, meanwhile, carried Morris County overall and tended to do better in wealthier, whiter areas. He was the lone candidate to get more than 50% of the vote in any town, a difficult feat in a race with 13 candidates on the ballot; he got 58% in Harding and a whopping 64% in Millburn, which he used to represent during his earlier stint in Congress from a neighboring district. (The other town he represented back then, majority-Hispanic Dover, went for Mejia 45% to 18%.)

Former Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way narrowly carried her home of Passaic County and, buoyed by a wave of outside spending on her behalf, finished in second or third place across most of the rest of the district. And Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill (D-Montclair) carried his hometown of Montclair and several other towns in his northwestern Essex base, but failed to expand much beyond that despite having a number of endorsements around the district.

Mejia said this morning that she believes her campaign has “emerged victorious,” but Malinowski has not yet conceded; his campaign said earlier today that they “remain confident heading into the continued count” of vote-by-mail and provisional ballots.

Gill, though, isn’t waiting around for a race call and has endorsed Mejia, taking his name out of contention for the June 2 primary election for a full term. (Mejia, if she wins the primary, will have to beat Republican Joe Hathaway in the April 16 general election for the Democratic-leaning district in order to make it to Congress.)

Several other candidates have also definitively said they don’t plan on running in June, among them Zach Beecher, Cammie Croft, and J-L Cauvin. But Way, the race’s third-place finisher, is not among them; her campaign has not made any statement on the race’s results and did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the New Jersey Globe.

Looming over both the special election and the June primary is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent more than $2 million to take down Malinowski only for a far more Israel-skeptic candidate, Mejia, to pull in front of him instead. United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, indicated earlier today that it may get involved once again before June.

“The outcome in NJ-11 was an anticipated possibility, and our focus remains on who will serve the next full term in Congress,” UDP said in a statement. “UDP will be closely monitoring dozens of primary races, including the June NJ-11 primary, to help ensure pro-Israel candidates are elected to Congress.”