The Favorite Won Every Called New Jersey House Race, and the Open Seat Decides Whether Smith Stands Alone

Rep. Chris Smith won re-election in New Jersey's 4th Congressional District on November 3, 2026, and as of November 5, 2026 he was on course to be the only Republican in the state's 12-member House delegation. The Associated Press had called 11 of New Jersey's 12 House races by that morning: ten for Democrats, including Rebecca Bennett's defeat of Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in the 7th District, and one, the 4th, for Smith. The twelfth, the 2nd District, was uncalled, with Democrat Zack Mullock ahead of Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who conceded on election night.

The calls are the AP's, as reported by News 12 New Jersey and NJBIZ, and the vote counts are the unofficial ones NBC News publishes from AP data, read at 9:55 a.m. Eastern on November 5. In the 4th District Smith had 154,601 votes, or 59.1%, to 106,911, or 40.9%, for Democrat Rachel Peace, with an estimated 96.7% of the expected vote counted. If Mullock's lead in the 2nd holds, New Jersey will send 11 Democrats and one Republican to the next Congress, the same split the state had after the 2018 midterms, when Democrats turned a 7-5 delegation into an 11-1 one, the New Jersey Globe reported.

The House boards had this delegation almost exactly. On November 2, 2026, Kalshi and Polymarket each priced a Republican hold of the 4th District at 96%, and the favorite on every board that the AP has since called went on to win. By November 5, both venues had Smith's side of the 4th District at 100% and the board listed both outcomes as resolved. The one New Jersey seat where the favorite on November 2 is now behind is the 2nd, and that is the seat that decides whether Smith sits alone.

What the New Jersey House boards priced on November 2

Most of the state's districts were never in doubt on the boards. On the evening of November 2, 2026, the best price for a Democratic win was 97% or higher in nine districts: 97% on Polymarket in the 1st and 9th, 98% on Polymarket in the 3rd, 6th and 8th, 99% on both venues in the 5th and 11th, 99% on Polymarket in the 10th, and 97% on both venues in the 12th. A price that high treats each of those nine seats as staying Democratic almost without exception, and all nine did, most of them by wide margins. In the November 5 count the narrowest of the nine was the 11th, where Analilia Mejia had 60.2% of the vote to Republican Joe Hathaway's 38.9%; Josh Gottheimer had 62.4% in the 5th and Herb Conaway 62.5% in the 3rd, and Rob Menendez, who faced no Republican in the 8th, had 88.6%.

Three boards carried real information. In the 7th, Kalshi and Polymarket each had a Democratic win at 95% on November 2, which priced Bennett as a strong favorite against an incumbent; she won by nearly 16 points, 57.1% to 41.4%, in the November 5 count. In the 4th, the Republican price of 96% on both venues made Smith's seat the only one the market expected Republicans to keep with any confidence. And in the 2nd, Polymarket had a Republican hold at 69% and Kalshi at 70%, while both had the Democratic side at 31%, which priced Van Drew as the favorite and Mullock as a real but less likely upset.

That last price is the one the count overturned. Mullock led 136,703 votes to 129,620, or 50.8% to 48.2%, with an estimated 96.2% of the expected vote counted on November 5, 2026, and by that morning Polymarket had the Democratic side at 99.5%, as the story on Van Drew's concession sets out. A set of boards that is right on eleven favorites priced at 95% or more and trailing on the one priced at about seven in ten is behaving as those prices say it should: the high prices were nearly certain, and the 69% was the only one with meaningful room for an upset.

How Smith became the last Republican standing

The 4th District result itself was never close. Smith's 18-point margin over Peace in the unofficial count matches what a 96% price implied about the seat: a district the market saw Republicans keeping in almost every outcome. What changed was everything around it. Kean lost the 7th after a year that CBS News described as including months of missed votes while he was treated for depression, a large fundraising deficit to Bennett and the main House Republican super PAC moving its money to other races. Van Drew lost ground late in the 2nd, where the New Jersey Globe reported that a super PAC tied to Gov. Mikie Sherrill and South Jersey Democrats spent more than 1.5 million dollars for Mullock.

The Globe framed the result as a return to the map of the first Trump term: Van Drew was one of the Democrats who flipped Republican seats in 2018, before he switched parties, and with his loss and Kean's, Smith is again the delegation's only Republican. For New Jersey that matters beyond the count of seats. A delegation of 11 Democrats and one Republican leaves Smith as the only New Jersey Republican in the House, in the same election that returned Cory Booker to the Senate by about 27 points.

The case for waiting on the 2nd

The 11-1 split is not final. The AP had not called the 2nd District on the morning of November 5, 2026, and CBS News said on November 4 that it had not projected a winner there, even after Van Drew's concession. The New Jersey Division of Elections says mail-in ballots postmarked by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day count if they reach the county board of elections within six days, so they will keep arriving until November 9. Mullock's lead of about 7,100 votes is large against the vote still expected, but until the AP calls it or the state certifies the count, the delegation stands at ten Democrats and one Republican called, with one seat pending.

There is also a statewide count market that waits on the same seat. The New Jersey House seats market page covers Polymarket's contract on how many of the state's House seats Democrats win, which resolves on official results and attributes each seat to the party under which its member was elected. That contract waits on the 2nd District as well.

What happens next

The next dated beat is November 9, 2026, the last day a mail-in ballot postmarked by Election Day can reach a county board and still count. An AP call in the 2nd District would settle the delegation's shape; the state's certification makes the totals official, and the Division of Elections had not posted official 2026 results as of November 5. Each House contract on both venues is written on the party of the member sworn in for the term beginning in 2027, so the boards follow the count through to the start of the new Congress. The district boards, including the 4th District market page and the 7th District market page, are gathered on the elections hub.