Political Newcomer Challenges McIver In NJ-10 Democrat Race: 2026 Election

An Essex County resident is challenging U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver for her congressional seat in the 2026 primary election: Lawrence Poster.

Poster, a West Orange resident, is competing against McIver for the Democratic nomination in the 10^th district, which includes several towns and cities in Essex, Hudson and Union counties (see list below).

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The primary election will take place on Tuesday, June 2. Winners will earn their party’s nomination for the general election on Nov. 3, which will include any third-party or independent candidates.

Poster is the founder of Catalyx Group, an executive search and strategy consulting firm focused on high-technology, biotech and medtech. He is a graduate of MIT. Learn more about his plans if elected and background here.

Poster is running under the slogan “Democrat for the middle class,” a theme that he hopes will score some votes on Election Day.

“My purpose in running for Congress is to fight for the soul of America,” Poster said. “I’m running for public office for the first time to fight for America and the working and middle class.”

Poster is pitching a “New New Deal” as part of his domestic campaign platform:

• Grow economy without inflation – avoid recession.
• Restore viability of the working and middle class. Restore our livelihoods. Restore our American Dream.
• Restore affordability through reducing cost burden of life necessities. Enact free or nearly free universal childcare, pass single-payer Medicare for All (age 55+) and restore and improve Obamacare for everyone else, forgive most student loans, restore Social Security benefits to cost-of-living levels of seniors in 1950’s, or at least the 2010’s, abolish federal taxes on most Social Security benefits, rescind Trump’s “beautiful” tax give-away to the rich, pass ‘Fair Taxes’ based on a progressive tax schedule, treat federal taxes on investments and salaries/wages equally, pass sweeping housing and education bills for everyone modeled on GI bills passed just after World War II, enact new higher federal minimum-wage law that reflects significant regional cost-of-living differences.
• Secure sufficient funding for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid to assure survival over next 3 generations of Americans.
• Support and stimulate job growth in all industries, especially in manufacturing, green electro-tech and 15+ frontier industries. To avoid dystopian AI future, invest smartly in education and retraining for everyone on scale not seen since federal education benefits for American GI’s returning home from WW II.
• Defend democracy in America: Defend the ballot box, defend constitutional right to vote (remember what happened in Bush V. Gore), undo Citizen’s United, kill filibuster rule, eliminate plague of gerrymandering by passing my radical proposal for immutable, bold new anti-gerrymandering law that forever takes congressional redistricting out of the hands of politicians.
• Provide safety and security for all in America: reform ICE but protect our borders, maintain strong national defense… support strong, sound and impartial justice… ditto for policing, protect America’s infrastructure from cyberattack and dozen other strategic vulnerabilities, reform gun laws to protect safety of America and American democracy.
• Restore legal system of immigration in America to reflect America’s need for growth and to preserve our nation’s historic immigration values.
• Provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers.
• Protect and defend human, civil, women’s, gender, worker’s and children’s rights.
• Steer America back into environmental sustainability, not only to dampen climate change, but to significantly grow U.S. economy.
• Restore national treasures such as NIH, the Smithsonian and our National Parks.

“The working and middle class are the backbone of America,” Poster said.

“Many of us are immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants,” he continued. “We have built America into the greatest country the world has ever known. But the world around us is crumbling. We feel it every day in our pocketbook. At the grocery store and gas pump. In our bones. Particularly if we are young, we can no longer buy a home.”

“In the 1950’s and 1960’s the middle class grew faster and outperformed all other groups. We gained in income and wealth – and earned it,” Poster continued. “It was A Golden Age of Prosperity. But our share of the economy has been in steady decline for 50 years. For some of us there was never a Golden Age. It is time for a comeback. It is time for re-balancing. Trump and Republican leadership are killing us. It is time to put America back on track and make our aspirations real. It is time to set things right and to bring back the American Dream.”

New Jersey’s 10^th district includes the following municipalities: Caldwell, East Orange, Essex Fells, Irvington, Montclair (part), Newark (part), Orange, Verona, West Orange in Essex County; Jersey City (part) in Hudson County; Cranford, Garwood, Hillside, Kenilworth, Linden (part), Roselle, Roselle Park, Union Township in Union County.

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