Billy Prempeh, the Republican nominee for New Jersey’s 9th congressional in 2020, 2022, and 2024, will no longer seek the same office in 2026.
Prempeh, an Air Force veteran and an unabashed conservative, announced late on Sunday night that he was suspending his campaign in the competitive Paterson-based district, telling the New Jersey Globe that “2026 just doesn’t feel right.” In a video posted to social media, Prempeh was far more explicit: the Republican Party establishment doesn’t want him, he said, and it will now reap what it sows.
“Let’s see what the party does in 2026,” Prempeh said. “I believe they’re going to do what they’ve always done: call their consultants, raise a bunch of money on a bunch of nonsense, go to their parties, drink, hang out. It’s a cool kids’ club, and they don’t want Billy in it, and that’s totally fine.”
Prempeh’s exit leaves just one Republican, Clifton Councilwoman Rosie Pino, running to defeat Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon), who is among the few Democrats nationwide to represent a district that Donald Trump carried last year. Another Republican, Tiffany Glenn Burress, an attorney and the husband of ex-NFL star Plaxico Burress, may enter the race as well.
But Prempeh, whose three prior campaigns were perennially underfunded but fostered a loyal base of supporters, made it clear that he has little intention at this point of getting behind one of his opponents or fostering party unity.
“The party wants someone with strings,” he said. “The party wants someone that they can control, whether it be a candidate that parachutes from a completely different town, a carpetbagger from outside of the district, or a councilperson that is well-hated within their own city, a total progressive Democrat who now claims to be a Republican.” (Burress lives in Passaic County but outside the 9th district; Pino holds a nonpartisan council office, though an advocacy group she leads endorsed Pou in 2024.)
When Prempeh first ran for Congress against Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) in 2020, few gave him much thought, and he lost the historically Democratic district in a 66%-32% landslide. Redistricting ahead of the 2022 cycle, however, saddled Pascrell with more GOP-leaning territory, and Prempeh held him to a much closer 55%-44% win.
Prempeh ran in 2024 expecting to face Pascrell once again, but the 87-year-old congressman died a few months before Election Day. Party leaders in the 9th district chose Pou, then a state senator, as his replacement; Pou was expected to win easily, but thanks to Trump’s surge among Hispanic voters in the 9th district and nationwide, she beat Prempeh just 51%-46%.
That result, Prempeh has argued for much of this year, was evidence in favor of his theory of politics. Despite running in a historically blue district, he had taken stridently conservative stances on Trump, immigration, and foreign policy – and came closer than any Republican in decades to flipping the 9th district.
But after launching his fourth campaign for the seat in March, Prempeh was faced with many of the same challenges that plagued his prior bids. For one, Prempeh never figured out how to raise money consistently; despite running in a seat targeted by the National Republican Campaign Committee, Prempeh only raised around $18,000 for his campaign, a paltry sum for a swing-district House candidate.
And for another, as he referenced repeatedly in his announcement tonight, Prempeh never became a beloved figure among local or national party leaders. Republicans were willing to nominate Prempeh during his first three campaigns, when they saw little hope of winning, but with national attention now focused on the district ahead of 2026, he was seen as a riskier bet.
Even beyond Prempeh, Republican hopes for flipping the 9th district may be waning, especially after Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill carried the district by nearly 20 percentage points in last month’s gubernatorial election, essentially erasing all of Trump’s historic gains. Though Pou will still have to work to win re-election, it’s increasingly clear that she’s the favorite to do so.
Prempeh said tonight that he doesn’t intend to step away from politics, but instead intends to “focus on the America First movement.”
“This isn’t the end of the movement that we started,” he said. “This is simply the end of Billy Prempeh 2026.”
