Talk Elections

This article is primarily about legislative redistricting, but the same issues apply to federal.

I mentioned earlier that the districts are drawn by a panel composed of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, with one appointed tiebreaker as needed. The article states that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appoints the tiebreaker. Last time, he sided with the Dems for a Dem-friendly map for the legislature, while both sides colluded on an incumbent protection map for Congress. Since there is zero chance of collusion for a legislative map, the machinations for the legislature could be interesting. I'm not sure what an incumbent protection map will look like when at least one Republican is likely to lose his seat with reapportionment.

http://www.examiner.com/essex-county-conservative-in-newark/redistricting-fight-nj-begins

So I tried to eliminate Runyan by unlocking the extra Democratic votes in NJ-1 and unused Dem areas in NJ-2 and creating a Delaware river district for Holt to run in. No dice. If you do that, you actually can create two good Democratic districts on either side of the Camden-Pennsauken border, rotate LoBiondo north to take half of Ocean County, and make a solid NJ-4 on Toms River and all of Smith's coastal territory, but you have to put too much of Monmouth County currently in NJ-12 into NJ-6 for Pallone's liking. And then you have all of Pallone's and Holt's Democratic territory in Middlesex County leftover with no takers unless you now eliminate Lance. The end result is to have to create a new Dem-leaning district in Central Jersey to fill the gap left by sucking Holt's district south and Pallone's to the shore. The final result would be favorable for Democrats, but unfavorable to 3 incumbents and probably stretches NJ-5 all the way to outer Trenton. I don't see how that happens.

I suspect despite all of the talk about last hired, first fired, the committee is going to have to do a fair fight district in the middle/north of the state.

Not true at all. Here's my map that eliminates Runyan and keeps all other incumbents safe. The numbers mostly correspond to current incumbents. NJ-04 becomes NJ-03, however, and NJ-13 becomes NJ-04.

NJ-10 is 54% black; NJ-04 is 54% Hispanic.

Runyan lives in NJ-12, but that seat is very safe for Rush Holt, around D+10.

North Jersey:
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South Jersey:
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That is similar to my NJ-12, but I balked at drawing Lance such a wide-ranging district. I don't see them pairing the older Republican Union County suburbs of NJ-7 with Monmouth with such a distant link, and it's the Monmouth Republican areas that have to go somewhere. I suspect they'd go into Pallone's district (he represented more of Monmouth prior to 1992) first.

FWIW, I gave the rest of Gloucester and Salem County to NJ-1 because they are Democratic enough and then drew NJ-12 closer into Camden by pulling in Haddon Heights, Pennsauken, and Haddonfield.

Does anyone know how Hamilton Twp. votes for President and Senator these days?

The one in Mercer County? Very swingy.

2009 Governor:
Christie (R): 14,234
Corzine (D): 13,490

2008 President:
Obama (D): 23,658
McCain (R): 19,422

2008 Senate:
Lautenberg (D): 20,594
Zimmer (R): 18,895

2006 Senate:
Menendez (D): 12,639
Kean (R): 12,527

2005 Governor:
Forrester (R): 14,235
Corzine (D): 13,990

2004 President:
Kerry (D): 20,874
Bush (R): 20,637

Source: http://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/results_2010_doe.html (http://www.state.nj.us/state/elections/results_2010_doe.html)

My goal with that was to shore up LoBiondo by putting the D parts of Cumberland County into NJ-01, which necessitated dropping the more R parts of Gloucester.

Anyway, you could rearrange NJ-07 and NJ-11 to put the Union County R areas in NJ-11 in exchange for most of the Hunterdon/Somerset/Mercer parts of NJ-11. I just figured the Union R areas would prefer to keep their current Rep, but perhaps not as Lance hasn't been around long.

I think Lance would do better in his home county of Hunterdon. I would give Lance the rest of Hunterdon County, and parts of Somerset as necessary, in exchange for Union County.

And I object most strongly to being placed in Frelinghuysen's district! :P

Interesting, it swung to Corzine. I had to put it in my Rush Holt district and was worried that it was a Republican town.

If I'm not mistaken, it is more Republican on the local level. Also, the areas nearer to Trenton are more urban and minority-heavy, so they would likely be more Democratic than areas to the south and east. If a similar plan is adopted, it's likely that Hamilton would be split, with the areas close to Trenton put into a Democratic district (presumably Holt's) and the rest put into Smith's district.

I have it in my mind as a mini Nassau County.

What's interesting is that if you do that, your new NJ-7 is nearly identical to the NJ-12 of the 1990s, before Trenton was added to make it safer. The effect of dismantling Runyan's district is to draw Holt into Runyan's district, eliminate Lance's district, and leave Holt's district empty but perhaps with Lance's home in it.

I'm not nitpicking so much as free associating.

I'm curious as to the number of municipalities that had to be split in Verily's map. I note that the last two cycles had 20-30 splits in order to get exact population equality. I'd be surprised if the commission goes much further than that in splits this time.

What's the matter with Frelinghuysen?

Perhaps I should rephrase that as "I don't want the district I live in to be dominated by Morris County."

Oh, ha.  Most of it's pretty similar to Hunterdon actually.  More like Warren, but still pretty similar.  Besides, it's not like counties mean anything in Jersey.  The Somerset Hills have WAY more in common with eastern Hunterdon and southern Morris than the rest of Somerset.

Okay, here's the list of split municipalities. I only listed split counties. 31 total. A few could be fairly painlessly eliminated.

Bergen County
Tenafly

Passaic County
None

Hudson County
North Bergen
Guttenberg
West New York
Weehawken
Jersey City

Essex County
Belleville
Bloomfield
Montclair
West Orange
Newark

Union County
Summit
Union
Roselle Park
Elizabeth
Linden
Rahway
Westfield
Scotch Plains

Middlesex County
Edison
Woodbridge
Carteret

Monmouth County
Middletown
Hazlet

Somerset County
Franklin (aka Somerset)

Hunterdon County
None

Mercer County
Hopewell Twp
Ewing (Both could be eliminated if Holt moved to Princeton.)
Hamilton

Ocean County
Dover (aka Toms River)

Burlington County
None

Camden County
None

Gloucester County
Monroe

Cumberland County
Fairfield

Smith lives there. That's the main reason I put (most of) it in his district.

From what I've heard, nobody is talking about eliminating Runyan or any of the 4 Southern districts.


The way I see it, if they're pairing an incumbent from each party, it has to be Holt/Lance or Rodney/Pascrell. Any other way, the lines become hideous, or 1 side or the other is heavily disadvantaged.

I figure Andrews, Lobiondo, Runyan, Smith, Pallone, Rothman, Sires, Payne, Garrett are safe. One of the other 4 guys gets the axe.

The Republicans, I think, are going to throw heavily Democratic Patterson into Sires's Hispanic district, and take the rest of the existing 8th and give it to Rodney, Garrett, Payne, and Rothman.

The Democrats, I think, are going to merge Morris/Somerset/Hunterdon into a single district, and chop the Republican areas of Union/Middlesex county into pieces and split them.


Merging Holt and Lance somewhere in Somerset/Hunterdon/Middlesex county district centered around the Brunswicks is probably the 'fair fight' setup. Lance probably gives it away and runs for Senate though.

Merging Rodney and Pascrell involves throwing Passaic and Morris in the same district.

What towns would you use to connect Paterson to JC and Newark? Would it still connect down to Perth Amboy?

No, you ditch the Elizabeth/Perth Amboy leg entirely.

Newark is already connected to JC under the current setup. All you have to do is connect Patterson to Newark through Passaic City and down the Bergen/Essex border. It sort of shapes like a U.

At first I didn't think that was possible without screwing over a Republican, but it seems like it can be done.

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Still, I don't think the Democrats on the Redistricting Commission are going to go along with it. I still think the Holt/Lance matchup is the most likely outcome.

Yep, what you drew is basically a perfect 6-6 map for the GOP.

I drew almost exactly the same thing with very minor modifications. Sussex, Morris, Hunderdon/Somerset, Monmouth, and Ocean form the cores of 5 GOP districts.


The only modifications I made is that you have too much of Rodney's district in Essex county. You really want to get that West Orange/Bloomfield area in some Democratic district (Livingston, West Caldwell, North Caldwell are fine). Heavily Republican Middletown and Hazlet can go into Chis Smith's district, that southern tip of Hudson around Bayonne into Pallone's, and shove Payne's district west a bit into West Orange.

But we're talking about only shifting around 20k people or so.

I did it relatively cleanly without splitting a whole lot of townships. Under 10 I believe, not counting Jersey City, Newark, etc.

Technically the easiest path for the Democrats to form 7 strong seats is in the southern part of the state. Lobiondo's 2nd I believe has a Dem PVI, and could easily be made more Democratic by moving Democrats in from the 1st, and moving Willingboro into the 1st. The problem of course is that Lobiondo is entrenched. And as long as those VRA 10th and 13th exist (the 13th especially is completely boxed in), its hard to use the remaining 4 Democrats (Rothman, Pascrell, Holt, Pallone) to soak what is a fair number of GOP votes. Nobody really wants to touch areas like Monmouth county, or North Bergen. Rush Holt is sitting in a 54% Kerry seat.

I think an easier way for the Democrats to gain a seat in South Jersey is to shift the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd slightly counterclockwise. LoBiondo picks up much of Ocean County, and Andrews picks up Salem County and possibly even Bridgeton. Runyan gets stuck in a Burlington-Camden district, picking up Pennsauken and Voorhees, and swapping northern Ocean County with Smith in exchange for northern Burlington County. This way you don't have the trouble of a proven, entrenched incumbent.

Something like this:

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Can I ask your thinking behind putting that bit of East Windsor in the 3rd district? My mother lives there, so I'm curious.

Because it's more Democratic than places like Jackson or Toms River. I was going to put ALL of East Windsor in, but then Smith would be stuck with West Windsor and Plainsboro, which would take Democrats away from Holt.

I just now realized that it should be interesting to see if I remain in Frelinghuysen's district.  I'm barely in it as it is and I doubt my area is where it'll move.  I don't want to be in Lance's district. :(

It depends. If they go with the Frelinghuysen/Pascrell pairing, you're screwed. The 11th drops its Somerset County extension in exchange for South Passaic.

If they go with the Holt/Lance pairing, which I think is more likely, then everything north of the current 7th will have to expand southward. Either Frelinghuysen's district picks up more of Somerset County, and the 12th ends up looking more like it did in the 90's, or it drops the Somerset county extension and picks up the Republican parts of Union County. In the latter case, you'd be stuck with the winner of Lance vs. Holt.

I could see the GOP agreeing to do this as long as it was Holt or Pascrell that got axed up north. It's probably a better map for both parties, in fact. Runyan is a bit of a lightweight, the 5 GOP long(er)termers get really safe seats, and the Democrats get the 7-5 advantage that they probably should have.

I don't know if its on the table, though.

If you're going to do that map, why not swap out Vineland for Lakehurst in NJ-02?

Or, frankly, just go with my plan that basically did the same NJ-03 but numbered in NJ-12 and extended it just far enough north to take in Holt. That way, Runyan is still eliminated, and there is no unpleasantness with two incumbents tossed out (as the commission surely will not allow).

The reason I don't agree with that map is because you essentially cut out a South Jersey Congressman. If I recall, Steve Sweeney tossed out one of the commissioners because he was from Essex County. Rob Andrews, Sweeney, and Norcross would probably be screaming about that.

It doesn't seem there are any rules or constraints as to how Congressional districts are drawn in NJ, so it seems that the default option is a map drawn by the nominee of one of the two parties, with the one chosen being made by the Chief Justice as to which of the two the Justice thinks is most qualified, and will represent the interests of the people.

So I suspect the default option, unless both parties nominate hacks, or the judge selects the hack over the straight shooter, is a non partisan map. So to me the game is looking at what a non partisan map looks like, and whether there is any other map that both parties would favor over that one. So only if 1) a non partisan map does not really favor one party for whatever reason, and 2) the two parties would prefer over a non partisan map that does not help either party, a map that makes everyone safe and happy, except that two incumbents would be pitted against each other in a fair fight district, will it seem reasonable that any other than a non partisan map will be adopted.

Make sense?

Wouldn't it be the case that both parties play chicken, and the judge will be choosing a tiebreaker who will choose either the R or the D map, not a fair arbiter who will follow a middle path? That's what happened in legislative redistricting in 2001, when the tie-breaker chose the Dem map over the GOP map.

It does, but I would add some priority for incumbent protection, except for the seat that pits two incumbents against each other. That seems consistent with NJ practice, and a non-partisan map maker would likely look at precedents from the previous couple of maps.

That was legislative redistricting, not Congressional.

If I recall correctly, they came to an agreement on Congressional redistricting.



I am sure both sides will be offering plans with 11 safe seats, 6-5.

Yes, although the last map was a two party compromise deal, in which the independent 13th guy did not have the whip hand. So they either cut a deal, or to get a majority vote, one party or the other has to get the independent guy to go along, and if they don't, there is no map, and ultimately the court will draw it I guess. So I think as you do that it will be like last time, because neither party wants some independent to mess up all their little inside deals, and incumbent protection schemes.

Looks to me that the Court can only pick, not modify. It only goes to the Court though if the independent guy doesn't do his job.




If the commission is unable to certify the establishment of districts by the time required due to the inability of a plan to achieve seven votes, the two district plans receiving the greatest number of votes, but not fewer than five votes, shall be submitted to the Supreme Court, which shall select and certify whichever of the two plans so submitted conforms most closely to the requirements of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

OK, Krazen1211, I didn't read that far, so both parties will have an incentive not to get too greedy. It actually is a very well thought out redistricting statute in NJ. I like it.

But what if both plans fully and equally comport with the laws of the US and NJ Constitution (and Jersey doesn't have any limitations, so if both plans comport with VRA and the equal population requirement, by just what metric does the Jersey SC decide which plan is best, since their appears to be no further text to guide it?

Probably the map that favors their political preference.

There's a bigger issue, of course, and that's that the Supreme Court might not have enough members at this time in 2012.

The court needs 5 members to function. Right now it has 6. Chris Christie kicked one of the Democrats out and nominated someone else, and angry Democrats refused to confirm the replacement. A second vacancy opens in September 2011, which knocks them down to 5, and a third vacancy in March 2012. So if stuff doesn't get resolved by then, well, we don't have a Supreme Court anymore.


That said, the independent guy has the power to pick a plan. I see no reason for him to punt.

Right, they came to an agreement because they had a shared interest in an incumbent protection plan in 2001... but there is no basis for a shared agreement when one seat is being lost. So, given that they will have competing plans, do you know if the procedure will be different from the legislative procedure in 2001 other than that it's for Congress?

I would be shocked if the six partisan members on either side can't stick together, and then the independent won't want to shirk his duty and will make seven.

For those who are not aware, in 2001, Republicans and Democrats could not agree on a state legislative plan. Larry Bartels, the "independent" vote on the redistricting committee, ultimately sided with the Democrats giving them their hand-picked map.

Once bitten, twice shy. I doubt Republicans will be interested in leaving things to chance if they can help it with regard to Congressional redistricting. Both Rs and Ds know the same thing we all do -- the only "fair" New Jersey map is going to be 6D, 5R, 1 competitive or I vs. I. Anything other than this will be a hard sell with the independent commissioner.

In the State House, Democrats will probably push for an "incumbent protection" type map, wanting to pack as many new Dems as possible into districts 2 and 14. Republicans will likely offer a more aggressive map to "undo" the damage of 2001, recreating a GOP-leaning district in North Jersey (like reverting 38 from D to R), and making Districts 2, 4, and 36 more GOP friendly than they are now -- they've already got candidates lined up in those. This is all subject to who the independent vote is, of course.

It's a really odd setup.

The legislative commission is 10 partisans, then they go to the Supreme Court Chief Justice for the 11th guy. Apparently, both sides agree that Alan Rosenthal should be that guy and it will be him.


The congressional commission is 12 partisans. They'll fight over who the independent member is probably, the Supreme Court (whole thing) will tiebreak to pick an independent member, and the independent member does what he wants.

The independent member does have the power to draw his own plan (ie play mediator) but he still had to get 6 other votes for it to pass. And if he is an honest guy, he does have some incentive to try and do this.


So, its mostly similar. Population loss will probably determine the maps; Republicans have it easier because all of their districts are mostly full already.

Well, the problem with legislative redistricting 10 years ago became one of law as well as politics.


http://cgs.rutgers.edu/resource-center/resourcecenter-1/documents/redistricting_nj_after_2010.pdf

) No county or municipality should be divided into more parts than one plus
the whole number obtained by dividing its population by 1/40 of the state’s
population.


It really comes down to this provision, which was ignored last time.


http://archive.fairvote.org/redistricting/reports/remanual/njnews.htm


So really the question is whether Jersey City/Newark are packed into 2 compact districts each (The Republican plan) or shoestringed into the suburbs (the Democratic plan).

Every indication I've seen shows that they are not going to be able to ignore the Constitution this time around.  North Jersey is probably losing a district to South Jersey too. It's a lot more difficult for the Democrats to get a good map if  Essex County is packed.

Mr. Moderate is right about 2, 36 and 38. 14 would have to be merged with parts of  30 (which has to shrink because its grown so much), to lean more GOP, theres simply too many public workers there now in the current district in the age of Christie. However, Christie could have a positive impact in other areas.

Currently, urban Northeastern New Jersey is probably about 150,000 short of needing all the districts that they have. My solution would be to drop the Plainfield area in with New Brunswick and Piscataway, thus reducing the preponderance of districts.

Which would give Republicans back their old District 22 seat.

One thing I never understood: Why does Chris Smith keep getting elected? He's basically a moderate Democrat except he's an extreme pro-life zealot, which strikes me as a terrible fit for anywhere in NJ.

I'm not really sure, but I imagine that it's a really Catholic district, which wouldn't make him such a bad fit after all.  Glancing at the counties in the district in Wikipedia, it seems Italian and Irish are the top two plurality ancestries, with a fair amount of Germans and Poles

Most Republicans here are (unfortunately, IMO) like that. Tom Kean would be a Democrat in a lot of states. Chris Smith is basically a name brand entrenched incumbent.

Even Christie is moderate on a lot of issues. The difference is he doesn't tolerate the plundering NJEA.

Our entire Congressional delegation outside of Garrett is either moderate or pretends to be.

Catholics and NJ gerrymandering have helped him of course.

Not to mention the fact the quality of his opposition tends to be very low. The last time he failed to get 60% of the two-party vote was in 1982- the race for his second term.

Most NJ Republicans are extreme pro-life zealots? Not quite.

No, sorry. Most Republicans here are basically moderate Democrats. We have very few conservative Republicans.

Smith is moderate on the wrong issues for most of NJ though. He'd fit better in western Pennsylvania or somewhere like that.

All right, whoever said you couldn't get rid of Jon Runyan is wrong. This map does that and protects the remaining incumbents for a 7-5 map. I tried to minimize splits of municipalities, except of course for the minority districts.

State

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North Jersey

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South Jersey

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NJ-01 (blue, Rob Andrews - D) - Pretty much the same; added Cherry Hill, so Adler can run here if Andrews retires in the near future.
NJ-02 (green, Frank LoBiondo - R) - Also pretty similar; adds a bit of Ocean County, which should please LoBiondo.
NJ-03 (purple, Jon Runyan - R and Rush Holt - D) - Cuts out all the Republican areas and adds most of Mercer County. Wouldn't be a fair fight; Holt would crush Runyan.
NJ-04 (red, Chris Smith - R) - Adds most of Ocean and the Republican parts of Burlington, loses the Dem-leaning parts of Burlington. Easily a safe Republican seat now.
NJ-05 (yellow, Scott Garrett - R) - Stretches along the northern end of the state, safe R.
NJ-06 (teal, Frank Pallone - D) - Removed as much of Monmouth as possible, added more of Middlesex. This map would have been a lot easier to draw if Pallone lived in Middlesex, Smith in Ocean, and Lance in Monmouth.
NJ-07 (grey, Leonard Lance - R) - Stretches across the state to take in almost all of Monmouth. Safe R, though Lance might have some trouble winning a primary here.
NJ-08 (light purple, Bill Pascrell - D) - This is kind of the "leftovers" district, as it stretches down past Newark into Middlesex and Union. Interesting demographics: 48% white, 29% Hispanic, 15% black, 7% Asian.
NJ-09 (sky blue, Steve Rothman - D) - Pretty similar, except it cuts into Essex County now. Another diverse district, at 59% white, 18% Hispanic, 14% Asian, and 7% black.
NJ-10 (magenta, Don Payne - D) - Takes in almost all of the majority-black areas of the state. 53% black.
NJ-11 (light green, Rodney Frelinghuysen - R) - Stretches to the west, trades territory with NJ-05.
NJ-12 (very light purple, Albio Sires - D) - The old NJ-13, pretty much the same. 54% Hispanic now, where it wasn't even majority-Hispanic before.

I have some nitpicks here and there. I think you unintentionally chopped off the NE corner of Ridgewood from NJ-09 and also put the southwestern corner of Belleville in the new NJ-12 for unknown reasons.

Also, I don't understand why you put Tenafly and Englewood Cliffs in NJ-05; Englewood Cliffs is marginally Republican (around 51% McCain), but Tenafly is substantially Democratic (around 63% Obama) and a lot bigger. Better to cut out a marginal town elsewhere, like Ridgewood.

Also not sure why Prospect Park and Haledon are in NJ-05 instead of NJ-08. They are much more Democratic than Woodland Park.

I would also try to fit the Republicans in central Union County into Frelinghuysen's district. You can do this by taking the D-leaning shore towns in Monmouth in NJ-07 (like Tinton Falls, Eatontown and Red Bank) and put them in NJ-06, leaving room for NJ-07 to take in population from NJ-11 after NJ-11 takes in the Republican towns in Union County from NJ-06.

I second this. Taking places like Red Bank out of NJ-07  in favor of territory more familiar with Lance in northern Hunterdon and Warren (Warren County was in Lance's old state senate district) could also be enough to discourage someone like Jennifer Beck from primarying Lance.

It's impossible in the political sense, not the logistical sense.

South Jersey is not going to lose a Congressman when all the population loss has been in North Jersey.

To be fair, I was the one who said it was impossible in the logistical sense while eliminating a Republican seat, and I was wrong.

You guys ruin all my fun. Also, I have no idea what you're talking about, because I don't have New Jersey's towns memorized. I was eyeballing everything from this map. (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=1061)

Essentially we're saying you should rotate CD's 6, 7, 11, and 8 clockwise a bit. Pallone should pick up some more of those Democratic towns in eastern Monmouth (Tinton Falls, Eatontown, Red Bank), Lance should gain the rest of Hunterdon and some of Warren, Frelinghuysen should pick up western Union (which is more Republican than the 2008 Presidential election results make it look), and Pascrell should take in more of Middlesex.

It totally makes sense for Belleville and Bloomfield to be split in two. Both towns have R-leaning, still Italian northern wards that are extensions of neighboring Nutley, and then minority-majority wards in their southern sections. Similar thing in Kearny in Hudson County.

I'm not sure Bill Pascrell would like having a district that is now concentrated in Woodbridge-Summit-Scotch Plains. Those towns are Obama-Christie swingers and while Pascrell might do well, why wouldn't a Democrat in that area want the seat? (Particularly after their decades of frustration of being represnted by Rinaldo, Franks, Ferguson and Lance). On the other hand, if Pascrell goes into Morris or Sussex his chances darken considerably.

Pascrell is 74 years old this year, FWIW.

Here are the election results from the past six statewide elections for the towns in western Union County that JohnnyLongtorso put in NJ-08 (Clark Twp., Cranford Twp., Fanwood, Garwood, Kenilworth, Mountainside, Scotch Plains Twp., Summit, Westfield, and Winfield Twp.). I specifically omitted black-majority Plainfield from these totals.

2009 Gubernatorial:
Christie (R): 28,046
Corzine (D): 19,598

2008 Presidential:
Obama (D): 38,538
McCain (R): 36,981

2008 Senatorial:
Zimmer (R): 35,217
Lautenberg (D): 32,780

2006 Senatorial:
Kean (R): 26,195
Menendez (D): 23,456

2005 Gubernatorial:
Forrester (R): 25,273
Corzine (D): 23,983

2004 Presidential:
Bush (R): 37,756
Kerry (D): 35,584

Competitive but leans Republican.

Haven't drawn it out, but would it make any sense to give Pascrell white-majority but still Democratic leaning enclaves in Hudson like Bayonne, Hoboken and parts of Jersey City?

I have to guess a GOP plan puts Rothman and Pascrell, or Rothman and Sires together.

I don't think so. To get there you'd need to cut through the minority districts, and even if you went around the 10th it would cut the 13th in half. The only way to get Sires' district back up to Hispanic-majority would be to screw over Pascrell by going into Paterson, which defeats the purpose.

You can get Hoboken into Rothman's district fairly easily, however. I have done so on my map, putting all of Kearny in Sires's district in exchange (all of Kearny is more Hispanic than Hoboken).

Bayonne isn't even very Democratic (only in the low 50s Obama), so it's not worth it. Better for the Democrats for it to be tied up in a Hispanic seat.

Also, at least on Johnny's map, Pascrell's seat still has the bulk of its population in Passaic County and in D fortresses elsewhere like Plainfield and Montclair. So having some swingy-towns in Union and Middlesex is not such a concern (but you should really try to get >60% McCain Clark out of his district if possible, perhaps by going through Westfield, which was only around 55% Obama). Remember, his current seat has some really R towns in Passaic like Wayne, North Haledon and Totowa in it, so Johnny's version is probably more D than the old version.

Anyway, not possible to put Rothman and Sires together--Sires's seat has to stay substantially Hispanic, and there aren't enough Hispanics in Bergen County to push it north. Probably possible to put Rothman and Pascrell together, but there's no way it would happen. The likely R plan would probably put Smith and Pallone together in an R seat. (Pallone lives on the shore in Monmouth, so you have to really reach to get him into a D seat.)

Depends on how much influence Pallone has. Him and Smith have seniority in the delegation. It's harder to see them put together than it is to see Vazdul's plan from page 2 drawn, which merges Sires and Pascrell and utterly screws Pascrell over.

One scenario on a Republican map could be for Sires (who is pretty far north in Hudson) to absorb some real-estate in the Meadowlands and the Palisades communities and go into heavily  minority and Democratic Hackensack (which is very similarly demograhically and economically to much of his current district). Pascrell could take remaining D-leaning Territory in Bergen, with Garrett absorbing Fair Lawn (which is only marginally Democratic AND only voted 5100 to 4100 for hometown son Rothman in 2010,), as well as GOP leaning Saddle Brook. Considering Garrett won this past election 65-35, even a little bit of boost for Rothman in the Bergen parts of a new NJ-5 would not be enough to overcome Garrett's strong base.

Hudson County is not that far short of a whole district all by itself. If you're pushing north into Bergen, it isn't very far, not far enough to even reach the Democratic trifecta in central Bergen (Englewood, Teaneck and Hackensack).

Also, although he lives there, Rothman is not Fair Lawn's hometown son. He's from Englewood and was mayor here back in the 1980s.

If I were the GOP, I wouldn't want to pit the polarizing Garrett against another incumbent, even if he were favored to win. Why not simply primary Rothman and Pascrell instead?

My bigger concern is that the GOP might not be too happy about both losing Runyan and leaving Lance open to a primary challenge by a Monmouth County Republican. Jennifer Beck is a rising star who has a history of winning tough races (she unseated a Democratic incumbent in 2007 who outspent her 7 to 1). Cutting places like Tinton Falls, Eatontown, and her hometown of Red Bank out of the 7th might discourage her ambitions.

This is the strongest NJ map I could draw. It also splits a lot less townships than the current map.

Monmouth county will get its own Republican when Chris Smith retires. Runyan would be very happy with Willingboro and Cherry Hill removed from his district.

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Verily is right about Rothman being from Englewood, but still surprising were his numbers in Fair Lawn this time (though it is not a particularly strong town for Pres. Obama). I think Hudson will come in around 620k in population, so even if Sires got all of Hudson it needs to pick up 112k somewhere. Conventionally, there would be incursions into North Newark and Elizabeth, but they could decide to send him a little north. In turn, they could Pallone some precincts along the Arthur Kill in Linden and Elizabeth.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/01/tea_party_group_in_nj_redestri.html

With tools like Dave's App and others that will be coming online this spring with the 2010 numbers, I expect more groups to take an interest and draw their own maps.

If you want to get Hispanics into Sires's district, it makes much more sense to shove it up to Paterson instead, not into Bergen County. Garrett can munch a lot of the central Bergen towns all the way down to Hackensack/Bergenfield. Wayne and Totowa also go into Garrett's district.

That lets him drop Warren County entirely.

As per your previous post, I think you meant Montclair and Bloomfield, not Bloomfield and Belleville? There are no concentrations of white precincts anywhere in Belleville.

If you are willing to split a lot of townships in Essex County, you get something like this on my previous map. This pretty much splits everything from Maplewood to Bloomfield.

() (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/rodney2.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

My new design, likely very close to the actual result. I had details written up, but the stupid forum lost them. Destroyed Lance's district, shored up everyone else except LoBiondo, who can't be helped. All seats except LoBiondo's should be safe for their party. Lance is in NJ-05 but wouldn't have a prayer in a primary with Garrett, whose entire base is still in the district. Minimal municipal splits; didn't count them up but probably fewer than the 30 in the current map.

The four non-minority Democratic seats in North/Central Jersey are all 51-54% white. Considered forcing one to be minority-majority but decided it wasn't worth it as the incumbent would win regardless. NJ-10 is 51.9% black VAP; NJ-12 (former NJ-13) is 53.4% Hispanic VAP (!).

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http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/11/0327/2357/

"The most likely scenario, just based on geography, is still one that pits Pascrell against Garrett or Frelinghuysen,” one of the Democratic insiders noted."

"Lance is the junior member, but the geography doesn’t work as well unless they rotate all of the districts north of the Raritan River counterclockwise and end up pushing Lance up against Holt. It’s a lot more complicated, though, and half of North and Central Jersey ends up with a new congressman."

Mine looks a lot simpler than any weird construct that pits Pascrell against Garrett (what? how is that possible?) or Frelinghuysen, both of which would require shifting a lot more territory. My map is pretty conservative, I think.

How on earth is that simple? That yellow district looks like a McDonalds arch; pitting Rodney against Garrett simply means combining Morris and the southern body of Passaic County.

Incoherent, perhaps, but not complicated.

Have you looked at Garrett's current district? It similarly arcs around the edge of the state. The changes to his district on my map are tiny, especially compared to what would have to be massive shifts of population to put him or Frelinghuysen with Pascrell. (Interestingly, I did consider and reject putting Morristown and environs in NJ-08, which would have put Frelinghuysen with Pascrell, but then you would have to redraw my map to put Lance in what is now Frelinghuysen's seat. I suppose that could work, but that's really eliminating Frelinghuysen, not pitting him against anyone, since Morristown is fairly Democratic and most of Morris would still be in Frelinghuysen's former seat.)

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If only it were so easy as "simply" combining Morris and southern Passaic. What do you do with everything else? There's a ton of Essex County in NJ-08; it doesn't just disappear, but Morris+southern Passaic is already oversized. You'll be forced to loop NJ-05 further down like I did anyway--but then you run into Lance in Hunterdon. It is pure fantasy to think such would be easy. (It would if you were operating on a blank slate, but we are not.)

The existing map was drawn as a (successful) bipartisan gerrymander. This time around neither side is going to be willing to lose one of their guys, and if Rosenthal and company believe even half the stuff he's saying about compactness those yellow and purple districts won't exist in that form.

It's almost certainly going to be opposite party incumbents paired, imo.

Nobody believes anything they're saying about not gerrymandering. If they're worried about not shifting around tons of people, they're going to have to at least preserve the existing gerrymander, which is all I did. Anything they say about compactness is blowing smoke; they said the same things in 2000.

Oh, I believe 11 out of 12 districts will be gerrymandered. I just don't believe that the 12th will combine the people you combined. Truthfully, though, you can do it much cleaner than it is now.

Garrett's district is only 60k or so short. Simply adding the rest of Sussex County and 20k votes in Bergen fills that district.

If this article is any indication, its not too difficult. Pallone's Monmouth base is dismantled and a new 6th is created in north Middlesex/South union County. That pushes the heavily underpopulated 9th and 10th into the 8th. That's where the population loss is.

Oh, look, they did a something!  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576241153016131650.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Can anyone find a copy of the map?

 Here is the link. (http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/6765/njredistfull.png)

I got all excited thinking they did a congressional map. This was already posted in the state legislature redistricting thread.

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/06/nj_parties_pick_leaders_for_co.html

DEMOCRATS

In addition to Roberts, Democrats picked:

• Ed Farmer, a former chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8th Dist.)

• Phil Thigpen, the Essex County Democratic chairman

• Nilsa Cruz-Perez, a former assemblywoman from Camden County who also served on the legislative redistricting commission

• Jeannine LaRue, who served in former Gov. Jon Corzine’s administration

• Michael Baker, a former assemblyman from Middlesex County

REPUBLICANS

In addition to DuHaime, Republicans picked:

• Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande (R-Monmouth)

• Eric Jaso, an attorney from Morris County who worked as an assistant U.S. attorney under Christie

• Sue Sheppard, a former Cape May County freeholder

• Aubrey Fenton, a pastor and former Burlington County freeholder

• Sherine El-Abd, a Republican activist and former official at the Department of Community Affairs




About the only person of note is the Pascrell CoS. If he gets mashed with Rothman they're going to want to make sure Pascrell has the advantage.

But how? The only other places southern Bergen County can go would be one of the minority districts. I just don't see that happening. I think we can rule out a Frelinghuysen vs. Pascrell or Garrett vs. Pascrell matchup as well. I'm beginning to think the odds-on favorite is Holt vs. Lance.

It's not easy to give Pascrell the advantage in any pairing, unfortunately for him, because the black district will likely be taking all of the Oranges. The most you can do is leave his base intact while cutting Fair Lawn, Saddle Brook, Englewood, and a couple other of Rothman's known areas out into the Garrett and the Sires district.

You'd still end up with something that is more South Bergen than South Passaic.

We'll be finding out who the 13th member is soon. Betting its not a university professor after the last round of shenanighans.

Is there anyone on there who is going to stand up for Pallone? A former Dem legislator from Middlesex won't.

Nope, he tried to get his ally on the commission, and Wisniewski refused to oblige. It doesn't help that the 6th is probably the ugliest district on the map.

The 6th is drawn the way it is to accommodate Pallone specifically. His district is, essentially, the (urban) Middlesex County district with "communities of interest" in other counties attached. It snakes down into Monmouth County, but that's only because Pallone lives at the southern most tip of that ugly little tendril.

Ultimately, Pallone will be saved in redistricting by simple math. A district that is dominated by Middlesex County must exist. By virtue of containing the most Democratic areas of a Democratic county, it can't be a competitive district. If it can't be a competitive district, it can't be the scene of an I vs. I fight.

There are only two possibilities for New Jersey's I vs. I battle next year. Option one is for District 5 to be redrawn to become a Bergen-based district. This would pit Rothman and Garrett against each other -- two congressmen without many strong allies in their respective parties. Much of the western half of the current District 5 would be given to Lance to shore up that seat; a lot of Rothman's Democratic territory could be gobbled up by Sires and Pascrell.

Option two is for District 7 to be combined with 12 to pit Lance against Holt. Much of Lance's old State Senate district would be absorbed by Garrett to give him only the tiniest foothold in 12. The rest of the new district would take in a balanced mix of 7 and 12 heading east, keeping the Middlesex County parts of 7 that Lance would rather not be there and keeping the Monmouth County parts of 12 that Holt would rather not be there.

For map drawers, the latter is the most elegant solution because both Lance and Holt live fairly close to one another. There's no reason why the district needs to stretch all the way to the Atlantic, so it gives a lot more leeway for negotiation around other districts.

I'm not so sure. The Middlesex County-dominated district could be Holt's instead. Pallone's district could be carved up by Holt and Smith fairly easily.


While it's easy to put Rothman in Garrett's district, I just don't see this happening. Garrett lives in Sussex County, so this configuration would still have to stretch from Pennsylvania to the Hudson River, and would be dominated by territory from Garrett's district. I don't think the Democrats on the redistricting commission would be too happy about that.


I still think this is the most likely outcome, but this configuration would be very ugly indeed. I think a Holt vs. Lance district would keep each Congressman's base intact, and only go as far east as needed.  It would include all of Hunterdon County, the parts of Mercer County currently in the 12th, the parts of Somerset County currently in the 7th and 12th, and small parts of Union and Middlesex Counties. Such a district would be much more compact, much more easily justified by a community of interest standpoint, and (I think) much more capable of gaining bipartisan support.

Garrett has a critical finance committee chairmanship in a state with a lot of Wall Street employees.

Pallone's district might be saved, but Pallone won't. The 4 southern districts need to push up about 200k people, and the only logical place is Monmouth County. He's lost his former base as is; Monmouth County has turned on him, and he has the Dem areas of the County.

The 7 + 12 matchup is a lot easier than that. Just combine Warren, Hunterdon, and portions of Somerset and Mercer Counties. The population just about lines up.

Monmouth County shouldn't be in that district at all. Nor should the Hispanic district really be stretching to Perth Amboy of course.

There's enough population in the Holt parts of Monmouth to up the populations of the southern districts (and no reason for them to be put anywhere but with Smith). No need to draw Pallone out of his seat.

But what does that solve? While it would be easy to eliminate Pallone, it'd be hard to eliminate Pallone in a way that serves both Democrats' and Republicans' best interests. I do think that Republicans will try to make Pallone more vulnerable via redistricting, though, and that Democrats may not try that hard to stop them. Christie wants Pallone to have to battle for his seat in 2012 (even in a token manner) so that he doesn't have a full war chest in 2013.


Oh, it doesn't have to be. Garrett lives in the very northern part of Sussex, a county with very little population anyway. By taking in just the top parts of Sussex and Passaic, you could easily create a district that's almost entirely dominated by Bergen. That would actually favor Democrats in a "fair fight" type district -- Garrett's base isn't in Bergen, while Rothman has been elected on a county-wide basis before.

Partisan data makes for gerrymandering fun!

Here's a Democratic gerrymander creating an 8-3-1 map (maybe could be 9-3 or 8-2-2 with more aggression). Municipal splits were generally avoided, although not minimized. There is a 51% black VAP seat and a 52% Hispanic VAP seat.

NJ-01 (Camden): 61-38 Obama, safe D (Andrews [D])
NJ-02 (Atlantic City): 53-46 Obama, toss-up (LoBiondo [R])
NJ-03 (Trenton): 61-38 Obama, safe D (Runyan [R], Smith [R])
NJ-04 (Toms River): 41-58 McCain, safe R (open)
NJ-05 (Wayne): 43-56 McCain, safe R (Garrett [R])
NJ-06 (Edison): 60-39 Obama, safe D (Pallone [D])
NJ-07 (New Brunswick): 60-39 Obama, safe D (Holt [D])
NJ-08 (Paterson): 64-35 Obama, safe D (Pascrell [D]) -- also narrowly minority-majority
NJ-09 (Hackensack): 61-39 Obama, safe D (Rothman [D])
NJ-10 (Newark): 83-16 Obama, safe D (Payne [D]) - 51% black VAP, 22% white, 18% Hispanic, 5% Asian*
NJ-11 (Bridgewater): 42-57 McCain, safe R (Frelinghuysen [R], Lance [R])
NJ-12 (Jersey City): 69-30 Obama, safe D (Sires [D]) - 52% Hispanic VAP, 30% white, 7% black, 7% Asian**


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*That's close to the maximal pack. There could be a couple of white areas in Union County dropped for some of the 20-30% black precincts left in Montclair, West Orange and Bloomfield, but that actually would not even increase it to 52% black VAP. All of Orange, East Orange and South Orange, as well as the black parts of Maplewood and Montclair and some mixed parts of West Orange are already in the seat.

**Pretty much the maximal pack without splitting any more municipalities.

This time around, I have to figure they'll finally eliminate the needless Trenton split in CD-4, as well as potentially East Windsor; that's population that CD-4 will take from CD-6 in Monmouth, and CD-6 will pick up in Middlesex, making it a Middlesex County dominated district, as it should be. What Mr. Moderate said holds true.

Buono would be a solid candidate for a primary in that district.

You also flipped Pallone and Pascrell.

Here's my evil GOP gerrymander:

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NJ-1: Glassboro-Toms River. Open seat. Andrews could run here, but otherwise it's a Republican opportunity. 50.9% Obama, 50.3% Democratic average.
NJ-2: Vineland, Atlantic City, etc. LoBiondo is the incumbent. Takes in some Democratic areas and relies on the strength of LoBiondo's incumbency. 54.9% Obama, 53.3% Democratic average.
NJ-3: Cherry Hill, Lakewood, etc. Runyan is the incumbent. This seat could leave him vulnerable, as it trades some Democratic areas for other Democratic areas. 50.4% Obama, 52.7% Republican average.
NJ-4: Hamilton, East Brunswick, Middletown, etc. Smith is the incumbent. Takes in some Democratic areas and relies on the strength of Smith's incumbency. 52.0% Obama, 50.1% Democratic average.
NJ-5: Sussex, Wayne, Paramus, etc. Garrett is the incumbent. I was very picky about which Bergen County precincts went into this district. 55.7% McCain, 56.6% Republican average.
NJ-6: Asbury Park, Long Branch, New Brunswick, Plainfield, Elizabeth, Bayonne. Pallone is the incumbent. 64.4% Obama, 63.3% Democratic average. Only 47.3% VAP White.
NJ-7: Flemington, Bridgewater, Summit, etc. Lance is the incumbent. 50.8% McCain (up from 48%), 54.3% Republican average.
NJ-8: Jersey City, Paterson, etc. Sires vs. Pascrell. I took a leaf out of Krazen's book and made this the Hispanic-majority seat. 77.3% Obama, 76.0% Democratic average, 53.8% VAP Hispanic.
NJ-9: Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood, and a tendril extending into Passaic and Essex Counties. Rothman is the incumbent. 61.8% Obama, 62.2% Democratic average.
NJ-10: Newark, Irvington, East Orange, etc. Payne is the incumbent. 89.0% Obama, 85.5% Democratic average, 51.3% VAP Black.
NJ-11: Hackettstown, Morris County, etc. Frelinghuysen is the incumbent. Compensates for West Orange and Millburn by picking up Warren County. 54.1% McCain, 57.3% Republican average.
NJ-12: The crown jewel of this gerrymander, Piscataway, Somerville, Trenton, Burlington, Camden, etc. Andrews vs. Holt, although Andrews may opt to run in NJ-1 instead. 72.8% Obama, 67.6% Democratic average, 48.8% VAP White.

Is there election data for NJ on Daves Redistricting now or are these all add-ins?

There's election data on the app. Some pieces are missing, though.

I would reconfigure these 2. You're cutting through a lot of Republicans to get Ashbury Park and Long Branch, and those areas are reddening. Ashbury Park and Neptune are small enough to easily drown in the rest of Monmouth County. It would also make it much easier for a Monmouth County Republican to succeed Smith someday; we don't have many Middlesex County Republicans.

It would be much better to keep CD-6 mostly in Middlesex/Union County and pick up more minority growing areas that you left in CD-7 and CD-4.

That's a good point. It would make sense to trade the Monmouth County portion of NJ-6 for places like the Brunswicks. Still, that would pair Smith with Pallone in a somewhat competitive district, which could be risky. I'll have a closer look at it on Monday when I get home to the computer the save file is on.

I might also try for a configuration that pairs Holt and Pallone instead of Holt and Andrews. That configuration would likely also pair Pascrell and Rothman and keep Perth Amboy in Sires's district so that the Holt/Pallone district isn't forced into Elizabeth and Bayonne.

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Jerseyhance

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I'm not perfectly happy with it to be honest. Might try running the Hispanic seat to Paterson instead of Perth Amboy in the next attempt. Nine split municipalities, but the only one not concerning the minority seats is two East Brunswick precincts just southwest of Millville.
Also, of course, this is what happens when you have no idea who lives where and only look it up after.

1 (Camden) 68% White, 14% Black, 11% Hispanic, 63.4% Obama. Andrews
2 (South) 65% White, 15% Hispanic, 15% Black, 55.7% Obama. LoBiondo
Safe for him, probably gone once he retires. Same ol' same ol'.
3 (Trenton - Burlington) 63% White, 19% Black, 10% Hispanic, 62.1% Obama. Runyan, Smith
Neither of which could hold this.
4 (Ocean) 82% White, 55.8% McCain. open
Lol, there's no Republican incumbent from the Shore?
5 (Monmouth - South Middlesex) 73% White, 10% Hispanic, 10% Asian, 50.4% Obama. Pallone
I suppose he loses.
6 (Somerset - Hunterdon) 64% White, 14% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 53.4% Obama. Lance, Holt
Looks like the right kind of seat for Lance... does Holt just move a few miles south to the third or what?
7 (Morris - Northwest) 79% White, 56.5% McCain. Garrett, Frelinghuysen
Nice primary fight.
8 (North Middlesex - West Essex) 60% White, 14% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 10% Black, 57.8% Obama. open
This is in a lot of split towns with the 9th because the edge of Black settlement in Essex County just doesn't conform to town lines at all while still being fairly compact and reasonable. Moving the western edges of South Orange etc to the 9th pushes its Black share down and makes the 8th even longer and uglier.
9 (Newark) 51% Black, 20% Hispanic, 19% White, 87.0% Obama. Payne
Nothing to see here.
10 (Hudson) 54% Hispanic, 28% White, 72.4% Obama. Sires
Bayonne and Hoboken are an issue, aren't they? I'd much rather cut anything south of Elizabeth out.
11 (Bergen) 59% White, 17% Hispanic, 16% Asian, 56.0% Obama. open
Rothman's hometown was a very late, "just to get the numbers right and avoid an ugly town split" casualty. I forget what his current district looks like, could he run here anyways? It's a mostly quite natural but not a particularly safe seat.
12 (Passaic) 53% White, 30% Hispanic. 57.5% Obama. Pascrell, Rothman
See above.

Probably going to be 7-5, though could conceivably turn out 6-6 or even 10-2.

Okay, I had some time to look at this, and here's the result:

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This improves the 4th to 50.8% Obama (from 52.0%) and 50.6% Republican average (from 50.1% Democratic average), but I'm still concerned about pairing Pallone and Smith. While I think Smith would certainly be favored to win, the district is more competitive than his current district, it incorporates a lot of new territory, and if 2012 turns out to be a Democratic year, it could be trouble. Is it worth pairing Smith with a Democratic incumbent for a swing of a point and a half?

Yep. Nobody should be afraid of Pallone in any monmouth based seat....Pallone did not even win the Monmouth section in 2010 and those were his base. The Holt section of Monmouth voted very Republican also.

You got many of the fastest reddening townships in New Jersey. Comparing Corzine 2005 to 2009 you have Old Bridge (13% swing), Hazlet (18%), Manalapan (16%) Marlboro (15%), chock full of good voters.

Also, I assume you drew this with the partisan figures. Why is West Windsor/Princeton Junction in the red district while Keyport, Sayerville, etc is in the green district? West Windsor and Plainsboro share a school district and you have a very valid reason to stick the green district into Mercer County.

Because dummy me saw a county line and decided not to cross it. Back to the drawing board...

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Okay, this should be it. The 4th is now a McCain district, albeit barely (50.1%), with a Republican average of 51.0%. The 6th becomes 67.5% Obama, 65.1% Democratic average.

I was kind of pissed to find out that The Holy Land, New Brunswick is split between two districts (the 6th and 12th) even if the reason is to make both seats more Dem. The place still shouldn't be dishonored like that, just pick one district to be worthy of its holiness. Hopefully that'll happen while still keeping both seats safe Dem (not really that hard actually.)

Am I reading the map wrong or is Trenton actually in NJ-04 instead of NJ-12? If it is...why?

Are you referring to my Republican gerrymander? If so, then you may rest assured that the city of New Brunswick is wholly in the 6th. The city does not extend into Somerset County. Trenton is also wholly in the 12th, to do otherwise would be stupid to say the least.

There's no need for the NE arm of the 12th and the SW arm of the 6th now - swap them between the two districts and you'll have a much nicer-looking map.  

I do need to put a marker down that comparing Corzine's repudiation in 2009 with past presidential results is very hard to justify for federal races, even those where Corzine ran, and even comparing it to the 2005 race, while good to show what happened in 2009, doesn't prove a town is "reddening" in the long term. Not unless you think there's not going to be any snapback against the Tea Party heights of the 2009-2010 election.

This all reminds me of how Bush increased his vote share from 2000 to 2004 by a few points, which proved that many groups and states were "trending" Republican.

Yes, the Middlesex-Somerset line is irrelevant there, particularly between New Brunswick and Franklin Twp.

If you want another example, Marlboro in particular (I have family there) is a Kerry/McCain jurisdiction. There are not many of those in the northeast. Many of the other towns in that belt either maintained or slightly increased their Republican margins between 2004 and 2008.

There is really ample data for the entire decade showing the reddening of Monmouth and Ocean County as a whole, with limited exceptions on a municipal basis.

What is this deal about the holy land? It's a prototypical college town with lots of low income Hispanics that votes very Democrat, but its not really an oasis for the Democrats as the surrounding areas are also Democratic. It's not Bloomington, Indiana.

Marlboro has a large population of older Jewish New Yorkers. The trend there mirrors what you see in NY-9 and FL-22... a massive Dem vote in 2000 because of Lieberman, with a swing toward Bush in 2004 caused by lack of Lieberman/anger over 9/11, followed by stasis or even a small swing away from Obama because many older Jewish Dems didn't identify with him. My question is, we can identify those factors, so what do they say about future presidential elections, or congressional elections of any kind? Something, certainly, for President, but not much for congress.

Let's also recall that Corzine spent bazillions of dollars in 2000 to drive up the vote totals, which didn't lead to a big winning margin for him, but helped Gore seriously overperform for a Dem in NJ, creating an artificially high benchmark. Also, George W. Bush was a uniquely bad candidate for NJ in 2000... pollution, a strong evangelical Christian religious identity, disdain for educated elites, and opposition to the northeast are not a winning combo for NJ voters.

You're positing a trend moving forward. I'm putting forth an explanation for results on a national level, and also noting a swing at the state level between 2005 and 2009. Where we differ is whether you can draw a straight line from 2005 to 2009 through 2013 showing "reddening" caused by... what factor? I say we need more data to show how the Tea Party high-water mark in 2009 (NJ) and 2010 (federal) looks now that we have divided government. Maybe it's going to be surpassed by even bigger Republican wins. However, I don't think so.

Also, I make no claims about Ocean County. I've never really looked at it and don't know it, and the growth seems to be senior citizens, which is going to make it more conservative.

It would seem to me that if fiscal issues are at the fore in 2012, that would tend to maximize the Pubbies' potential in a state like New Jersey. 

No, I mean the current map.


It's not about politics or voting patterns.

For the record, I wouldn't call it a straight line trend past 2009. Generally the Democrats will likely reclaim the lost Daggett voters in most races who could not stomach voting for Corzine. Corzine also had some nonsensical toll plan and the GSP runs straight down the shore.

Here are the congressional results for Monmouth County in district 6, in Dem percentages:

2002: 66%
2004: 66%
2006: 67%
2008: 64%

And district 12:

2002: 53%
2004: 48%
2006: 56%
2008: 51%

The bottom of course fell out in 2009 and 2010 in both districts. Not too much slippage, but not too much gains, either even as the Democrats picked up on the national vote. But Pallone was never in a million years supposed to be getting 48% in his base portion of that district. It is true that these people have voted more Democratic in our noncompetitive congressional races, but my expectation is that when many of them are moved to Chris Smith's district, that they will vote for him as well.

Primarily, these are wealthy low tax whites who have and will obviously be hit by the Democrats tax policy. Housing prices have also priced lower income and younger people out of the district, and there are large pockets around there where housing has somewhat maintained.

It's not just a 2005-2009 thing. The best Dem performance in NJ in recent times was McGreevey in 2001. He actually won both Monmouth and Ocean County (Gore almost did the same). Corzine 4 years later improved Dem performance in Bergen/Essex/Hudson (+8% in Hudson) and held steep declines in Middlesex/Monmouth/Ocean County (-5 to -8%). The exact same thing happened in 2001-2005 as 2005-2009. The Northeast held and the suburbs plummeted, with those 3 counties leading the way. The state as a whole has a reddening PVI for the same reason in generally the same areas.

Chris Smith was from suburban Trenton and used to represent the entire city. In the 1990s, NJ-12 was considered a Republican district, so it would have been odd to reach down and grab Trenton. Then Holt won in '98 and hung on in '00 so the incumbent protection gerrymander in 2002 split the city in two, giving some of the more Democratic parts to Holt.

But the bottom fell out of formerly safe Democratic areas all over the country in 2010, and not just the blue dog areas. Look at MN-8, for example--Chip Cravaack's stunning upset was a sign of the overall election dynamics, but I wouldn't say that it is predictive. Similarly, the big Dem drops in MI-12, the Scott Brown election, northern Wisconsin, eastern Pennsylvania...

What seems to me is that if certain issues are at the forefront and there's a big anti-incumbent wave, there are parts of NJ that will swing one way or another. In 2009 and 2010, it was anti-Corzine and anti-Obama. In 2000, it was against the national Republicans and the social/industrial agenda; in 2001, it was a reaction against 8 years of Christie Whitman.

This all looks like Bucks County. I don't see trends, I see a swingy voting bloc that can be summoned to vote heavily against a candidate or party and can't be relied on for either party. Unfortunately, in NJ, the Republicans need this group solidly in their corner to be competitive. This happens sometimes but not often enough, and almost never in federal races.

Trenton is split because Chris Smith wanted to keep his current voters even knowing that its hostile territory. There are no Republican parts of Trenton.

Generally, IMO, there are big differences between areas like MN-8, which are full of union Dems and vote for all Democrats besides that clown Oberstar, and places like MI-12, which are the havens for blacks fleeing Detroit, and places like Monmouth County which are of course, anti-tax fiscons and generally vote for most competitive Republicans nowadays. In fact, in 1990, Holmdel was the launching point for the Florio tax revolt. Specific candidates might have some impact, but generally the fundamentals here favor the Republicans and IMO will continue to do so as long as what Torie says holds true.

If we're making an argument from data, then the data from Levin's district and Oberstar's district can make the case for "reddening" in those areas consistent with what happened in the Monmouth portion of NJ-6 between '06/'08 and '10. That's all I'm saying.

I also don't think they're "anti-tax fiscons" in the sense of Republicans in most parts of the country, or even the NJ-5 sense. They're people who become anti-tax when they're paying $14,000 a year in property taxes on a house worth $400,000 that they bought for $40,000 in 1975 or $110,000 in 1984. It's worse when their kids are no longer benefiting from the good schools they used to be happy to pay for. That's going to push anyone to revolt, and has--but is well within the bounds of national Democratic policy.

Democrats nearly took control of the Texas State House on the backs of swing voters like this, pushed in the other direction. But one election favoring Republicans (2010) and those suburban Dems were wiped out.

Well, they aren't in the sense that they aren't historically consistently straight ticket GOP voters like the people in NJ-05 are ; which is partially the fault of the Whitman era GOP. But anti-tax reform guys like Kyrillios have held the legislative districts here relatively easy for a long time now.

They were always anti-tax, though. And not just with Florio in 1990; there were a lot of rejections of school budgets in Monmouth in 1991-1995 compared to the statewide norm; and this was long before the $14k property tax days.

The 2009 revolt won't of course translate upballot to the Presidency. And it won't go downballot anywhere as we hold all the Sussex to Somerset, Monmouth, and Ocean county seats. It might help Christie get 50% of the vote though.


Good point about MI-12 though. I don't think its fair over MN-08 as Dems like Dayton won that easily, but Snyder obviously cleaned up in MI-12.

A little while ago, I was talking about the least likely of the two redistricting scenarios for 2012: a NJ-05 that combines Garrett and Rothman. Here's what I drew up.

The new NJ-05 dips further south into Bergen, taking heavily Democratic towns like Fort Lee. It gives up much of its GOP-friendly western territory to Leonard Lance (who now has a very safe Warren-Hunterdon-Somerset-Union district). The new NJ-08 takes in some of Bergen now to balance out the numbers, but it is still undisputably a district "owned" by Pascrell.

Ultimately, we get a new Bergen-based NJ-05 district that went 53.8% - 46.2% for an overall D+0 district.

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The reason I keep posting on these NJ threads, here and elsewhere, was because the anti-Florio election (1991?) was one of the formative events in my early awareness of politics, followed later by the 1996/1998 backlash against Republicans that was strongest in the northeast. I see things in terms of those two events, which gives me a view of politics in NJ as more cyclical than not, with the potential for tax revolt always present, but also with a backdrop of a general trend toward diversification which favors Democrats when cultural issues are at play.

Right before she resigned, Christie Whitman was quite popular, even among Democrats.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1299.xml?ReleaseID=499

New Jersey voters approve 56 - 35 percent of the job Christine Whitman did as governor. Rating Whitman's handling of specific issues, voters say:

So was the  Difranciscom and President Bush, pre 9/11.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1299.xml?ReleaseID=510

Gov. Donald DiFrancesco's approval is over 50 percent for the first time and now stands at 54 - 17 percent, with 29 percent undecided.


Better said that 2001 was a rebalancing to the fundamental balance of the state as it existed at the time. That's why the 2001 governor's race and the 2000 Presidential race show similar performance in every county across the board, except 2: Ocean and Hudson, which were even so very close. That shows stability, not random quirks such as some dude being from Texas.

The 2001 Governor's race was something of a fluke. DiFrancesco likely could have held the Governorship against McGreevey or at least kept it close, but he chose to resign after some scandals broke. Republicans had a terrific candidate to replace him in Bob Franks (something of a GOP hero for almost taking down Corzine), but getting him on the ballot required the GOP fudge election laws and postpone a major statewide election.

The backlash for this was large, and only compounded by the fact that Bob Franks could not successfully articulate a reason for being in the race. Despite having near universal organizational support, Franks lost the primary in a landslide to conservative upstart Bret Schundler.

Schundler was too conservative to win in New Jersey -- or, at least, that was the message successfully built by the Democratic opposition. Schundler failed to win over the GOP organization that he led a revolt against, and ultimately, he was left fending for himself as Republican Party resources went into defending GOP legislative majorities above all else. To that end, they did a good job -- Republican candidates held seats in some districts that went 2:1 for Gore a year prior. Republicans drew to a 20-20 draw in the State Senate, one of the better results they could have hoped for.

2001 had little to do with Whitman. True, Schundler's early base was those GOP voters who never approved of Whitman in the first place, but he required so much more to actually score  the Pyhrric victory.

That's true, it had very little to do with Whitman at all. B33 is the one who mentioned here in the first place.

But if is very unlikely that any GOP candidate would have won that year; they were losing in all the polls that Quinnipiac has posted for the entire 2001 cycle.

Which 66% Gore district are you referring to? The GOP held the same 16 they have now, plus 1, 2, 4, and 14. The Democrats came within a few hundred votes of winning 1, didn't run a candidate in 2, and won 4 a couple years later in 2003 despite the fact that the state already disliked McGreevey.

It is no surprise to me that the Democrats would do best in times when jobs are plentiful and tax mutiny is at its low point. On other issues they are a better fit for the state.

Rose Heck won her Assembly race in LD38, a solid 2:1 Gore area.
In LD07, Sen. Diane Allen won easily -- this is another district that went 2:1 Gore. It's the most Democratic territory of Burlington plus a slug of Camden County.

Heck won in 2001 as an incumbent by the narrowest of narrow margins, and her seat was taken by a Democrat in 2003 while she ran for the State Senate and lost.

Allen's appeal obviously goes beyond her party label, as she has consistently won in her heavily Democratic district by comfortable margins.

And, as a follow up to my NJ-05 "fair fight" map, I created a NJ-12 "fair fight" map. This is the most likely type map for New Jersey to draw (at least with respect to NJ-12).

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It's something of a mix between Holt's district and Lance's district. Lance's Hunterdon base is included in its near entirety. The western half of the current NJ-07 is essentially given to Rodney Frelinghuysen, who gains a lot of nominally Republican towns in Union and Middlesex. Chris Smith's district becomes an almost entirely Monmouth-based one, though he would also represent some of the more Democratic parts of Burlington (to help out Runyan, who now gets a district that voted for McCain).

Meanwhile, Rush Holt keeps almost all of Mercer (Smith keeps only his home town of Hamilton, and a small part of Trenton) and his territory in Monmouth and Middlesex.

I had to draw an ugly (but safe!) district for Pascrell, who keeps all of his Passaic County base, but snakes south through to eat the more Democratic parts of Woodbridge (Frelinghuysen gets the GOP parts). Payne's CD-10 starts snaking down south, eating a lot of black-majority territory along the way. Sires's newly labeled CD-07 stops a lot farther north, prioritizing the consumption of Hispanic territory.

2008 Presidential numbers
NJ-1: 67.8% Obama
NJ-2: 51.8% Obama
NJ-3: 50.4% McCain
NJ-4: 51.7% McCain
NJ-5: 56.7% McCain
NJ-6: 65.3% Obama
NJ-7: 72.8% Obama
NJ-8: 61.9% Obama
NJ-9: 59.3% Obama
NJ-10: 85.2% Obama
NJ-11: 52.4% McCain
NJ-12: 54.0% Obama (50.3% Republican)

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While that is similar to what I expect NJ-12 to look like post-redistricting, I don't think South Jersey is going to end up quite like that. If the Democrats are going to concede NJ-3, they're not going to want to take all of the Democrats out of NJ-2 as well. They're going to want to keep it leaning Democratic in the event LoBiondo retires.

There's some give and take. Neither NJ-02 nor 03 become safe, merely "safer." NJ-04 actually gets much weaker for Republicans, giving Democrats an opportunity here upon Smith's retirement.

51% McCain is not an "opportunity". It would be an opportunity if it voted for Obama.

There's no compromise on that map, just a Republican map. A compromise map would either be more favorable to Holt (maybe 56-57% Obama) or not make NJ-02 and NJ-03 safer.

Tiebreaker is a Republican, albiet a Whitman type RINO. Either way, time to merge the 4 NE districts into 3.

http://www.politickernj.com/49637/breaking-dems-and-gop-agree-farmer-13th-member

The consensus choice by Republican and Democratic members to be the 13th member of the congressional redistricting commission is John Farmer, Jr., former attorney general and counsel to the 911 commission.

I do think the Holt vs. Lance race would be fair but only in a 56-57% Obama district

Former Attorney General John Farmer (http://www.northjersey.com/news/politics/Sources_Former_attorney_general_to_be_named_to_redistricting_panel.html) is the tiebreaker for the Congressional map. He served under Whitman and DiFrancesco.

He was also Acting Governor by virtue of a constitutional glitch in 2002.

He's a very interesting choice. Certainly has his ties to the Republicans, but despite that, he has a very positive reputation as a fair-minded individual. A win for the GOP, if only because they have a person who won't intentionally kneecap them in redistricting the way they've been kneecapped before.

First commission meeting next week. Thoughts?

With all the Turner excitement, NJ seems to be getting overlooked. Do we see R vs. D R vs. R or D vs. D? Will they try to draw a new coalition or Hispanic influence seat?

They can't really do either; since NJ is losing a seat, they're going to have to make NJ-10 snake out to maintain its black majority, and NJ-13 wasn't drawn majority-Hispanic last time around, so they'll probably be more interested in maintaining it or making it majority-Hispanic.

Population losses were heaviest in the 4 northeastern Democrat districts, and the tiebreaker is a Republican. If he is half the partisan hack that Rosenthal was the answer is quite clear.

So is Rothman in trouble with no commission allies and the recent re-ascendance of the Bergen GOP?

That is certainly a valid possibility given how he has many hispanic dominated precincts in his district.

Orthodox Jews were a big part of their growth

no one cares ~

I want to see a poll showing Dan Malloy's popularity plummeting among Orthodox Jews.

if there's a discussion about why Ocean County is more conservative the answer is very relevant and if you all of a sudden stop caring when you find out why, then you go on to prove that left wingers are the most intolerant and closed minded people in America.

NyJew is right. The Orthodox move into Lakewood made it the fastest-growing city in the state and McCain's best. Also factor lots of Staten Island and North Jersey white ethnics moving in and you see not only strength for GOP state and federal candidates but also landslides for Chris Smith.

Another question is whether Pallones Monmouth leg gets swallowed, but maybe an open seat with parts of Union, Middlesex and maybe a little bit of Hudson is created for him. Also will Payne representing the lion's share of mostly Latino Elizabeth continue?

That would be an open Dem seat, but not an open seat for Pallone. Some other Democrat would claim it.

A couple of  hints that Pallone has to watch his back:

1. Albio Sires said that he thinks he will have more of Middlesex. That is an interesting comment since besides Perth Amboy, the only big Hispanic area is New Brunswick  which is the heart of Pallone's base.

2. Pollster and Professor Patrick Murray, who has an inside line to the Democratic establishment, testified about how gerrymandered Pallone's district is. This means the Democrats realize that the current district is untenable.

I idea I looked at last spring was to create a strong Hispanic influence district as well as a majority Hispanic district. This can be done by splitting the current NJ-13. The north half links with Patterson as CD-8 with 57% HVAP and the south half links with New Brunswick as CD-7 with 31% HVAP. That still leaves room for a BVAP 51% CD-10, and none of the districts has to go crazy splitting towns, though some splits are unavoidable.

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Muon,
I looked into a map like this as well. I preserved a black majority district, with one Paterson-North Hudson district and one Central Hudson-New Brunswick district both in the 40s for Latinos. South Belleville, North Newark and most of Elizabeth were in the latter. I like that your second one also connects the South Asian vote in Jersey City and Edison/Woodbridge.  What is the Asian VAP in your new "7th"?

The above CD-7 has the following VAP demographics in DRA:
White 37.4%
Black 13.1%
Asian 16.9%
Hispanic 30.7%
Others 1.8%

A coalition candidate from just about any ethnicity could succeed here.

Did you move all of Elizabeth out of Payne as well?

I put all of Elizabeth in my CD 7 stretching from south Jersey City to New Brunswick. My goal was to keep as many towns whole as possible.

http://pallonefornewjersey.com/


Pallone for Congress changes to this. Interesting.

They seem, in practice, to have the advantage for reasons unknown, yes. Indeed, the last New Jersey legislative map engaged in a 3 way split of Jersey City and Newark despite the rules specifically stating that there must be a 2 way split.

Which seat would that be? Your problem is actually that the GOP holds all 3 Bush/Obama districts.

NJ-3 was drawn to protect Jim Saxton. Ocean County should be contained to one district.

That would be a very valid viewpoint if New Jersey was in the business of containing larger counties into 1 congressional district. As it stands, only Morris, Warren, and the 4 southern counties are.

It's not an issue of counties, which are pretty irrelevant in NJ, but having more than one district go from Delaware River to the shore when there is more justification for a north/south split.

Indeed, but such machinations do not give the Republicans an extra district. There are still 2 Democratic leaning districts in South Jersey.

Given that 3 districts must be placed south of I-195, and that I-195 should not be double crossed, you would likely end up with the same 3 congressman we have now.

Unless you split up the Camden/Camden inner suburbs.

Sure they give an extra Republican seat. A natural map of South Jersey would create two Democratic seats (one in Camden/Gloucester Counties and one in Burlington County), one Republican seat (most of Ocean County) and one marginal seat (Atlantic City, Cape May, outer Gloucester, etc.).

That's a pretty clear communities of interest grouping. The shore gets two districts and the Delaware Valley gets two districts, and each is very cohesive (well, except the Atlantic/Cumberland/Cape May seat, but that area is weird and doesn't fit well with anywhere else, either, so it'll have to do).

Your math is off. South Jersey is roughly 3.3 districts and you gave it 4. As it stands, we hold precisely the 2 districts one would expect even under that configuration, as well as the to be expected Monmouth County district.

I might add, your proposed configuration is highly desirable for the Republican party as you force the Atlantic City district to pick up a nice large chunk of Ocean County, at least compared to the brittain33 proposal which does not seem to do so.

Here's my new fair New Jersey map. Intentionally made no attempt to make a majority black or Hispanic district, although Payne and Sires would easily be reelected anyway. (This map would be perfectly VRA-compatible as it does not dilute minority voting power, just fails to gerrymander to concentrate it extremely--although there is still a plurality black district and a [barely] plurality Hispanic district.) No municipal splits (as a result, the districts vary by about 4,000 max from ideal, though some are very close to ideal).

Not totally happy with the four-way split of Somerset County (if you can't tell, North Plainfield is with Union County), but I was trying to go with communities of interest, and I think this split fairly accurately reflects commuting and settlement patterns.

The two Republican seats in NW Jersey were drawn that way to create one more suburban seat and one more rural seat. I felt this better reflected communities of interest than following county lines.

As for partisanship:

NJ-01 (Camden): 64-35 Obama
NJ-02 (Atlantic City): 55-44 Obama
NJ-03 (Toms River): 45-54 McCain
NJ-04 (Middletown): 46-53 McCain
NJ-05 (Wayne): 45-54 McCain
NJ-06 (Elizabeth): 62-37 Obama (45% white, 28% Hispanic, 17% black, 7% Asian VAP - minority opportunity)
NJ-07 (New Brunswick): 59-40 Obama (also 20% Asian VAP, although majority white)
NJ-08 (Paterson): 67-32 Obama (41% white, 32% Hispanic, 12% Asian, 12% black VAP - minority opportunity)
NJ-09 (Jersey City): 69-30 Obama (37% Hispanic, 37% white, 13% Asian, 9% black VAP - plurality Hispanic)
NJ-10 (Newark): 79-20 Obama (41% black, 31% white, 20% Hispanic, 4% Asian VAP - plurality black)
NJ-11 (Morristown): 43-56 McCain
NJ-12 (Trenton): 61-38 Obama

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So, on the Democratic side, Pallone and one of Pascrell and Rothman get screwed, to be replaced by a Middlesex County Democrat and a Union County Democrat. On the Republican side, two of Garrett, Lance, and Frelinghuysen get screwed, to be replaced by (probably) a Bergen County Republican. Any predictions on who'd win the Republican primary in the 11th?

Anyway, its hard to tell, but it appears that Brigantine is not in the same district as Atlantic City. This should not be the case, since there are no roads connecting Brigantine to anywhere except Atlantic City (don't respond by posting a picture of the current 13th- this is supposed to be a fair map).

Also, I'd like to see a 13-district version using 2000 numbers, in response to the discussion that was going on in the Maryland thread.

I see the VRA still being the law of the land. A fair map reflects the VRA. I do not understand the obsession with not splitting municipalities.

My map is here:

http://www.redracinghorses.com/diary/1196/new-jersey-redistricting-plan

My map is completely VRA-compliant. All the VRA requires is that minorities not be diluted in their voting power and be enabled to elected their preferred candidates. In some areas, particularly where the majority population has been demonstrated to block-vote against minority candidates (the Deep South), this necessitates a 50%+1 VAP standard for minority districts, although even there a district could be VRA compliant if it were, say, 47% black and very likely to elect the preferred black candidate. Of course, in NJ racial polarization in voting patterns is much weaker, and consequently a 41% black plurality district is completely within the VRA provided it is not intentionally drawn to dilute the black community (and, while splitting counties and municipalities rampantly could up the black percentage, it's pretty clear that this map is not intentionally diluting them).

Also, missed that about Brigantine. Shouldn't be hard to fix.

I would figure Frelinghuysen would be favored over Garrett in that NJ-11; Garrett is a little bit too provocative and doesn't have much institutional support. I think the Passaic/Sussex/Warren and Morris parts of the district are about evenly split, though. Garrett also might try moving to NJ-05 and running there, although he's not at all a good fit for the seat.

Lance is just completely removed, but his district is the most obviously problematic anyway (well, except Pallone, but that's just because of where Pallone lives; the district itself ought to exist, just without the tail to Asbury Park).

Does Pascrell really live in Paterson? I just figured he was totally screwed, might try a run in NJ-05 but would lose. If he's in Paterson, maybe he could beat Rothman in a primary, but I doubt it--the Passaic County parts of NJ-08 are only about a third of the seat.

Also, Smith is cut out of his district (he lives in Hamilton, in Mercer County), but he could easily move to NJ-04.

Here's a 13-district version with 2000 numbers. The "new" district is the marginal Bergen County seat (probably around D+2, although I don't have partisan data; the NJ-08 and NJ-13 parts of Bergen County are both marginal, so NJ-09 is about the same as the county as a whole). NJ-13 on this map is actually more Hispanic since it doesn't extend as far into Bergen County.

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Not a huge fan of the split of Bergen County as designed, but the population doesn't work out properly to combine south Bergen with Paterson on these numbers. An alternative would be to combine Paterson with the Republican suburbs in northern Bergen County (rather than the marginal surburbs in western/southwestern Bergen County), but that doesn't really make any more sense from a communities of interest perspective (doesn't make less sense, either, though). The choice is basically between this map, which creates NJ-08 and NJ-09 as probably around D+8 and D+2, or an alternative version combining Paterson with northern Bergen County that makes both districts about D+5. Neither is satisfactory, really.

For the most part there is no compelling reason to split any municipalities in any New Jersey mapping. I certainly would not do so under even a GOP gerrymander.

Yes there is. Newark has a distinctly white/Latino North and East Ward (Hispanic district) and three largely black wards (Payne). These constituents have differing concerns. Jersey City has one and a half black wards and four and half Asian-Latino-White wards. Moreover, if you drive thru North Newark or the Ironbound its more like Hudson County than the rest of Newark, so that part should be in Pascrell or Sires and not Payne. Other communities have similar divides.

Verily did you mean 2000 or 2010 numbers?

2000, as Vazdul requested.

Also, the racial divides within JC or Newark are not enormous enough to be worth splitting municipalities over. Now, if either JC or Newark were large enough for more than one district, it would be fairly clear which parts should be split off (well, maybe; I would probably split Downtown JC and Newport from the rest of JC first)--but that's not necessary. However, it is equally clear that, for example, the Bergen-Lafayette district of JC has much stronger connections to the rest of JC than it does to Irvington or East Orange even though Bergen-Lafayette is overwhelmingly black.

I disagree. I think districts should focus more on similar kinds of neighborhoods and cultural ties rather than municipal lines. The Ironbound culturally is similar to Hudson County, as are sections of Elizabeth. Thus the Hispanic VRA district, with its large white ethnic population, makes sense.

Anyone think there could be a John Olver style retirement in Jersey?

If so, it will be Pallone, as some people don't like him and he could run for governor.

White Smoke? Maybe:
http://www.politickernj.com/52980/speculation-heavy-redistricting-deadline-looms

If it's Garrett vs. Rothman in a toss-up CD, Rothman should win since Garrett is very conservative for NJ.

Depends hows it drawn. I think Garrett needs at least an R +1 or R+2. Also his dissenting towns (Glen Rock, Ridgewood, Tenafly and Bergenfield) would have somewhere to go with Rothman. However I think Garretts base in the Northwest will come out big against Obama and Rothman. This will be a good one.

The thing about combining Rothman and Garrett is where Garrett lives. A "fair fight" district in Bergen is totally feasible, but a district that includes a large portion of Bergen and stretches all of the way out to Sussex is almost impossible due to population constraints and very unlikely to be a fair fight. I suppose they could put Garrett and Frelinghuysen (or Garrett and Lance) together and then make Rothman's district marginal to "compensate" (unfair since Republicans are already overrepresented, and Lance's district is obviously the one that "should" be eliminated, in addition to Pallone being drawn out of his district [but the district itself surviving as a D seat], but whatever), but that doesn't seem like what the commission is suggesting.

Republicans have nearly as many seats as the Democrats because the voters of New Jersey chose to elect them. It simply isn't for you to decide which parties are "overrepresented," and which are not.

This is correct. A fair map doesn't just reflect the general partisan leaning of a state, but also should reflect the mood of the electorate. For example, the CA map for the last decade was so locked in that swings in the electorate were not reflected in its delegation and only 1 of 53 seats changed parties during the decade. By contrast the IL map during the last decade was better in that the initial 10 R - 9 D delegation shifted to 7 R - 12 D by 2008, then to 11 R - 8 D in 2010.

Indeed. The Republican candidates got more votes than  the Democratic candidates across all 13 districts in 2010.

What was the average number of votes cast in Dem-held districts compared to Republican-held districts, and what accounts for the difference?

Certainly they were much lower. Albio Sires won with ~66k votes if I recall. Many Republican losers like Sipprelle got more votes; hence, the above phenomenon.

To be clear, I do not believe that such 'proportional representation' theories hold water, or that the GOP is underrepresented, or that they should have won a 7th district in 2010.

If they created a Bergen-centric NJ-05, it might give Assemblyman Russo his opening to challenge Garrett. Maybe even Kathie Donovan. The ideal situation for Republicans would be Garrett running for US Senate, leaving the seat open for Donovan. Garrett's a bit too far to the right for the part of Bergen where Rothman lives, and Rothman has previously represented and won North Bergen.


I agree with this: Garrett needs an R+1 at least.

The only way I see a "Fair Fight" district emerging is to extend Freylinghuysen north and east through Wayne into Bergen so he absorbs some Bergen Republicans. Basically NW Bergen is cut out and thrown into the new 11th which would have more of suburban Essex as well as Totowa, Little Falls and Woodland Park. It also means Pascrell's new district would be at least 45% from Rothman in South Bergen. Pascrell could represent these people but would Rothman pick the district with right-wing voters in Sussex or potentially piss off the party with a Pascrell primary? The Rothman Garrett district sounds somewhat polarized but it would be extremely interesting.

A "fair" NJ map would IMO eliminate Lance's district, and give both Runyan and Pallone districts they'd be hard-pressed to win.  Reaching across the Pine Barrens from the Delaware to the Atlantic has always bothered me; it would make more sense to have one Mercer-Burlington district and one Ocean County district.  I guess a Mercer-Burlington district would actually be Rush Holt's as well, but he'd be a better fit for a compact Middlesex County district (possibly with southern Somerset).

I grew up in Pascrell's district and always thought it was the best-looking, most compact district in NJ, so I really want to see it survive.  Southern Passaic and suburban Essex is a very logical combination.

You have a point about the 8th though it could easily take in the Meadowlands or West Essex and still be compact.

Unbelievable how far ahead Pascrell runs ahead of the national Democratic ticket usually. Hence why the GOP probably shouldn't allow him to go against Garrett.

My preferred solution for the 8th would be for it to take the rest of West Essex, in fact.

That would probably make it D+6. But Pascrell wouldve still gotten about 57% in 2010 considering his performance in a D+10.

Intreresting that you can draw Rodney all the way to the 3rd Ward of Kearny and keep him at 53% McCain if you have the other Republicans absorb Dover and Morristown. Shows that a lot of suburban Essex and Passaic is still pretty conservative.

Except for the inclusion of the low income city of Paterson, yeah,

I don't think even an R+1 (which still means voted for Obama) would be strong enough for someone as far right as Garrett. I don't see how he could survive in an Obama-voting district against any half-decent challenger.

Paterson is surrounded by suburbs, and it has to go somewhere.  Putting it in with the same district as the rest of Southern Passaic (and note the city of Passaic itself is similar) is easily the best option.  You can't just string urban core to urban core without creating a horrible mess.

I still like my option of using Paterson as part of a 57% HVAP district as I posted a while back. It's less messy than either the current NJ-6 or 13.

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A fair NJ map would probably shave off Sussex and Warren from Garett's district, setting up a Bergen centric Garrett/Rothman battle in a D+0-1 district. Give Sussex to NJ-11, Warren to NJ-7 and expand NJ-12 into southern Somerset county while giving all of Hunterdon to NJ-7

The problem is, Garrett lives in Sussex, so any "fair fight" district involving Garrett would have to include it. And Garrett is so conservative by New Jersey standards that removing those Republican areas from the district wouldn't make it a fair fight anyway.

The northern part of Passaic and Bergen is not entirely unlike Sussex. The rest of Bergen that Garrett represents is "moderate Republican" territory, but the congressman is popular there.

He'll struggle in the parts of Bergen unfamiliar with him, but I doubt he'll have trouble in the parts he already represents.

Any word on what time the maps will be released today?

Maybe not against a generic D, but he'd underperform against Rothman, who was elected in county-wide races before.

Rothman I dont think was elected, I think he was a judge.

They say the map will be released tonight or tomorrow. I get the feeling that a tighter ship is being run here than with the legislative redistricting but some bitterness that Pascrell refuses to retire and may end up forcing the younger Rothman into a tough race.

I could be wrong, but I thought someone said he was elected in a county-wide race?

Or maybe it was simply that he served in a county level office.

Let me Wikipedia that for you:

"Rothman attended Washington University Law School. He served as Mayor of Englewood, New Jersey for two terms (1983–1989), a Bergen County Surrogate Court Judge (1993–1996), and practiced law as a private attorney."

Would not be surprising at all, as CD-8 and CD-9 are both smaller than CD-5. This would indeed be consistent with the principles of vengeance, and also consistent with the Rosenthal principles.

Today was the deadline set by the chairman because he wanted it done before Christmas. Word is that the finished map could be out tomorrow morning.

My ideal plan would involve snaking NJ-7 right down from Hunterdon into Mercer County and Trenton while giving Holt more of southern Middlesex county to make up for part of Mercer lost. Of course this will never happen :(

Bergen County Surrogate is a county-wide elected position.

My ideal plan would vaporize NJ-7 (or rather vaporize NJ-12 and turn NJ-7 into a compact Middlesex district that Lance wouldn't want), split NJ-3 and NJ-4 east-west rather than north-south, and clean up some of the other lines as necessary.  From a good government standpoint, the preferred mashup should probably be Lance v. Pallone, since they have the two worst districts right now, and Middlesex deserves a district of its own.

If the Dems had free reign to gerrymander, they could even try and take out LoBiondo by unpacking Camden.  But I kinda like LoBiondo, he's pretty much the only Republican left who's genuinely sane on environmental issues.

Both sides maps pair CD-5 with CD-9, nominally. How 'fairness' is defined is yet to be determined; of course; the Democrats rarely win districts in New Jersey without a registration edge.

The vote is at 10 AM tomorrow. I'll be in attendance for the drama.  :)

Here's what I would consider the "cleanest", fairest possible map for NJ.  The overriding goals are to not split municipalities and counties more than absolutely necessary, and keep cohesive regions together.  My goal was to have all districts within 1000 of the ideal, but NJ-11 is 1,061 people short.  Dammit.  Only four towns are split, all for the express purpose of keeping NJ-10 majority black, and except for Essex and Union, no county has more than two districts (again for VRA purposes).  (Sires' district is not currently majority-Hispanic, so there is no reason to go out of the way to boost Hispanic % above what we have now; the new district is just over 50% Hispanic by total population but a bit less than that by voting age.  It'll elect a Latino anyway.)  It's a tiny bit better for the Dems than what we have now, but it was not made with partisan goals in mind.  (A partisan map would have tried to boost the Dem performance NJ-6 and crack Camden to weaken LoBiondo, among other changes.)

The state as a whole:

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Closeup on the Northeast:

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District-by-district comments:
CD 1: Obama 64%, Dem 62%.  Camden County is made whole, and the parts of Burlington and Gloucester closest to Philly are added for population.  Safe D for Andrews.

CD 2: Obama 55%, Dem 53%.  The South Jersey district; Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Salem, and most of Gloucester.  Still more-or-less safe for LoBiondo, but probably tilt D in an open seat scenario.

CD 3: Obama 63%, Dem 57%.  Burlington and Mercer, give or take a couple towns necessary for population.  Splitting South Jersey east-west makes much more sense than north-south, as we then have a Delaware River district (which is part of the Philly metro) and a Jersey Shore district (which is part of NYC metro), and we don't have to cross the Pinelands.  Runyan, Smith, and Holt all live here, actually, and none of them would love this district (though Holt would probably win it).  It's crazy that all the Reps down here are near the river rather than the ocean, surely one would move.

CD 4: Obama 42%, Dem 42%.  Ocean County is made whole and parts of Monmouth are added for population.  Safe R, Smith or Runyan could move here and win easy.

CD 5: Obama 42%, Dem 39%.  Garrett country, Safe R.  All of Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon, and the most rural parts of Morris, Passaic, and Bergen.  I don't like that I had to throw Butler from Morris County in here, or that I had to split Morris at all, but it keeps the lines prettier then trying to take from Somerset instead.

CD 6: Obama 52%, Dem 50%.  The Monmouth district, with Robbinsville and swingy southern Middlesex.  Pallone would throw an absolute fit, and this would be a top Republican target.  But the geography of this Central Jersey district makes a lot more sense.

CD 7: Obama 62%, Dem 60%.  Urban Middlesex and southern Somerset, a growing area that deserves a Rep but is currently carved up by outsiders Lance, Holt, and Pallone.  Holt or Pallone might carpetbag here but I'd rather see an actual resident run.  Only 49 percent white by VAP, Asians are a sizeable minority here and this could be an opportunity district for them.

CD 8: Obama 62%, Dem 60%.  Pascrell's district, and where I grew up.  Take away the minority areas of Essex and southern Passaic plus suburban Essex fits a district perfectly.  No reason not to draw this.

CD 9: Obama 58%, Dem 59%.  An all-Bergen (and somewhat weaker) district for Rothman.  You could throw a finger down to Hoboken if you really needed to make Sires' district majority-Hispanic by VAP, but that's really not necessary and this district is perfect as is.

CD 10: Obama 83%, Dem 80%.  Splits Montclair with NJ-8, and Newark/Jersey City/Elizabeth with NJ-12 to keep the Black VAP just over 50 percent.  An earlier draft threw a finger out to Plainfield and split Union with NJ-11 to boost the Black percentage to 52, but that's probably not necessary and this map is prettier.  You could split a couple precincts (and a couple more towns) in the Newark Bay area to give NJ-10 and NJ-12 road contiguity, and in the actual map that's what I'd prefer to do.

CD 11: Obama 49%, Dem 45%.  Don't be fooled by the Obama percentage, this is Safe R for Freylinghusen for years to come.  Most of Morris, half of Union and Somerset.  Country club territory though and through.

CD 12: Obama 70%, Dem 71%.  Much cleaner than Sires' current district and still a touch more Hispanic.  Most of Hudson, most of Elizabeth, and the most Hispanic parts of Essex County- the Ironbound, North Ward, and Belleville.

...

It should go without saying that this map is sheer fantasy, of course.  But it's a nice fantasy.

Considering Garrett is a tea partier and the tiebreaker vote is a moderate, my money would be on him taking the Dems map but you never can be sure. The GOP attempting to give Garrett a 50-51% McCain district and strengthening NJ-3 while the dems have a tossup Rothman/Garrett plus NJ-3 remaining swing territory sounds like a much fairer deal.

Republican picks Republican map. (http://www.politickernj.com/53463/farmer-picks-gop-map-which-gives-garrett-advantage-over-rothman-combined-district)

How amusing and unexpected. It's almost like the Democrat picking the Democrat map in numerous states, including this one.


GOP map shores up Runyan by a couple points, and puts Lance in a strongly GOP district. Lobiondo is about the same.

Rothman's entire south Bergen base is elsewhere. He might not even run in CD-5.

The Dems probably should have written off the north jersey  seat and tried to gain more friendly districts either in 3 or 7. NE Jersey did lose the most population so it's not that shocking it loses a seat. It sounds like the dems have a chance to win NJ-2,3 but the GOP has no chance in hell for any of the 6 dems. Another boring decade.

The map is about to be unveiled!

http://blog.northjersey.com/thesource/files/2011/12/NJ-2011-CD-Map-Final-with-Towns.pdf

Slam dunk districts for the GOP.

NJ 2 is now a Republican district. ;)

Runyan must have gotten Republican areas that they weren't expecting. Someone gasped as the map was revealed, "Oh my God. Look at the 3rd!"

He traded Cherry Hill to the south for 67% Christie Brick township to the North. That was however very much expected.

Former Speaker Roberts (D) admits that Garrett has the advantage in the Garrett-Rothman race and Runyan's district is less competitive than before (despite the Chairman's assertion that both districts are competitive).

Ocean County should all be in one district (the 4th), it certainly would fit in one district.

Republicans shut themselves out of winning the 6th and 12th, so that's one good thing about the map.

Not a very fiscally responsible decision.

The new 'Pascrell' district, NJ-09, not only has Rothman's designation, but the bulk of the population is from Bergen County and not Passaic County. Paterson, Clifton, Passaic Cities only sum up to ~280k people.

Indeed, Rothman is highly unlikely to run in NJ-05 at all.



Edit: the Garrett district is 52% McCain, down 2 points from before.

It was more of a guess, this is really just an incumbent protection map on steroids with the elimination of a D seat in declining population area.

Disappointing map.


At least he'll be less safe.

What number is the Sires Hispanic district?

8

What were the past results from the commission like in NJ?  From memory:

2011
Congressional:R
Legislative:D

2001
Congressional:D
Legislative:D

1991
Congressional:R
Legislative: ????

It seems to average out to be quite fair (especially if the GOP in fact won their legislative map in 1991).

It's really not fair to describe the 2001 congressional map as D. 1991 legislative was fairly R leaning.

Win some, lose some. At least for an R map it's quite fair and resolves a lot of irregularities and you can't argue with where the lost district should have come from.

Was 2001 a straight bipartisan compromise, as in the tiebreaker wasn't the deciding vote on the commission?  Hmmm:

2011
Congressional: R
Legislative: D

2001
Congressional: Bipartisan (deal)
Legislative: D

1991
Congressional: R
Legislative: R

...So it's probably fair, although it could tilt R- we need more cycles to compare!  I've heard that 2001-Legislative was particularly egregious as a gerrymander, though.

Estimated Obama/McCain numbers from DKE:

1    65.4    34.6
2    53.9    46.1
3    51.9    48.1
4    45.7    54.3
5    48.9    51.1
6    59.1    40.9
7    47.8    52.2
8    74.4    25.6
9    64.2    35.8
10    85       15
11    47.4    52.6
12    66.3    33.7

And who currently represents how much of the new districts:

1    Andrews 90%    Runyan 10%              
2    LoBiondo 94%    Runyan 6%              
3    Runyan 76%    Smith 23%    LoBiondo 1%    Andrews 1%    
4    Smith 66%    Holt 19%    Pallone 14%    Runyan 2%    
5    Garrett 79%    Rothman 21%              
6    Pallone 64%    Lance 20%    Sires 11%    Holt 6%    
7    Lance 61%    Freylinghuysen 27%    Garrett 5%    Holt 3%    Payne 3%
8    Sires 68%    Rothman 16%    Payne 11%    Pascrell 5%    
9    Rothman 52%    Pascrell 44%    Garrett 4%         
10    Payne 72%    Sires 15%    Pascrell 10%    Lance 3%    
11    Freylinghuysen 65%    Pascrell 32%    Garrett 3%         
12    Holt 68%    Pallone 14%    Smith 10%    Lance 7%

NJ-3 is not unwinnable by any stretch but probably only switches in a wave year for now. NJ-2 leans slightly Dem but no one is going to win it until it opens.

TBH, some dems are exaggerated the changes to NJ-3, while it did lose Cherry Hill it also gained all of Burlington county which added another several thousand Dem votes erased by Cherry Hill. Obama won the new district by about 3-4 and the old one by 5. Runyan is safer but the Dems certainly can and must win this seat to take back the house.

Well, as a liberal, I'm disappointed. But the districts are clean(er than the current map) and seem to respect municipal boundaries, so I can't complain too much.

What's the Hispanic percentage of Sires's district?

No way does northern Burlington County cancel out losing Cherry Hill and picking up Brick. Most of those townships in northern Burlington are swingy at best, and Brick is rock-solid Republican. Burlington City and Township help somewhat, but I don't see this seat changing hands over the decade.

Hard to believe that 2 redistrictings ago, this was a Republican district.

It's only 68% of the current Holt district.  It's probably even less of the district it was in the 1990s, geographically speaking.

The 2001 legislative redistricting ignored the NJ constitutional rules governing legislative districts.

Sure, the result was as much due to redistricting as to demographic and electoral change, although there was some of that. If you'd said in 1994 that someday Republicans would concede the district (2001) and then make it a Democratic vote sink (2011), I would have been pleasantly shocked.

Man, I hope they offered Rothman some lube first.

Its still D+1.

NJ Dems cannot, and frankly have no interest in, defeating Lance. That district getting more Republican was an inevitability. Dems didn't want him to face Holt.

Runyan is safe absent a wave. It was a lean GOP district before, and the few extra voters it picked up is just gravy. This is not a district represented by Democrats downballot. There's no bench.

Republicans got a good "fair fight" district in NJ-02. LoBiondo will retire eventually, and the GOP is fortunate to get a decent district to fight that epic battle in.

Rothman both has a plurality in the population in the new 'Pascrell' district, and has the district number.

It's far more accurate to say that NJ-8 was dissolved. All the white Republican towns that were surrounded by Paterson were liberated and given to Rodney.

For NJ, where the Obama-McCain numbers overstate Dem PVI by a bit for NJ-05, those numbers are the numbers of a "responsible" Pub gerrymander. I assume the Pubs got lucky with the geography of the state.

If I was Rothman, I'd pass on the rigged primary and the rigged general and set my sights on Bergen County Executive instead. It's hard to argue that's a major step down, or really, even a step down at all. And he's probably the only person who could beat Donovan for the position.

Here's my reconstruction of the NJ map based on the pdf at the link earlier in the thread,

()

Here's the DRA stats from this map:

NJ-01: D 62.6-37.4; Obama 65.1-34.9
NJ-02: D 52.0-48.0; Obama 53.7-46.3
NJ-03: R 50.8-49.2; Obama 51.6-48.4
NJ-04: R 55.1-44.9; McCain 53.3-46.7
NJ-05: R 52.6-47.4; McCain 51.3-48.7
NJ-06: D 58.6-41.4; Obama 59.2-40.8
NJ-07: R 57.4-42.6; McCain 53.0-47.0
NJ-08: D 72.5-27.5; Obama 72.5-27.5
NJ-09: D 64.2-35.8; Obama 64.1-35.9
NJ-10: D 81.0-19.0; Obama 84.5-15.5
NJ-11: R 55.1-44.9; McCain 53.3-46.7
NJ-12: D 60.7-39.3; Obama 65.4-34.6

More data.

http://www.redracinghorses.com/diary/1537/nj-congressional-numbers


NJ-05 always votes slightly Republican. Very nonswingy. Not like NJ-03 where Mcgreevey outperformed Corzine by 15 points.

I jumped the gun a bit but it should actually be totally even.

It's somewhat ironic that based off Bush/Gore 2000 numbers this map is actually quite fair to Dems. Gore easily won both NJ-2 and 3 and nearly tied in 4. The 9/11 effect I think caused Ocean and Monmouth Counties to rapidly swing to the GOP. Both counties have decent sized white working class communities which hurts the dems but GOP overreach as with Gingrich in 1994 can cause this area to swing Dem again. NJ 2,3 don't have the low educational levels that districts with similar trend lines in Western PA have so you cant rule out a swing back to the Dems.
  As for NJ-3's Democratic bench, having almost all of D leaning Burlington County in it should solve this problem :). It went from a 5.5 point Obama win to roughly a 4 point Obama win. It's really time to quit the whining and find a candidate against Runyan.

Actually, it doesn't. Just about all the state and county legislative officials are Republican. Christie got 59% in NJ-03. Republican registration advantage is at least 5 points.

You don't have to take my word for it. Roberts conceded that NJ-03 is noncompetitive.

It's simply not a winnable district for the Democrats. Unlike NJ-02, which encompasses random rural areas and lower income areas in Gloucester, NJ-03 covers many higher income areas.

And even adjusting for the 2010 numbers, Runyan only won it by 5 points in a heavily GOP year. Burlington has trended D for awhile so I'm not sure if they can control the county offices for long, much less the whole decade. Will Runyan lose in 2012? Odds say no but you can't rule out the dems taking it in a future cycle.
I'm a Jersey native so I'm not trolling with BS on this thread lol. In a way it's not terrible that the Dems can now concentrate on the growing areas of south jersey and ditch the machine style corruption from the north that certainly hurts the party image in moderate NJ-2,3.

He was running as an untested Football player, not an incumbent Congressman, against someone with a moderate reputation.

Not sure he's compiled the strongest legislative resume quite yet either. And congress is very popular right now

Republicans even made Pallone's seat less Democratic. I presume that means Diane Gooch will be running again.

Many of the towns in the old CD-8 weren't Republican.  Wayne, yes, but not West Orange or Bloomfield or Montclair.  There are plenty of Democrats in suburban Essex, and I don't think they'd consider it "liberating" at all to be trapped in the Morris County district.

Christie got 53% or 54% in NJ-6, a district everyone recognizes as a Dem vote sink, according to the Daily Kos site I just closed out before checking which of the two numbers it was. Those gubernatorial numbers are highly variable. Not that I disagree that NJ-3 became tougher than before, but given national Republican overreach, stranger things have happened. The district probably has a lot more olds than it used to.

Aren't their D legislators along the Delaware River? Again, not that legislators have a track record of unseating Congressmen in NJ.

How did they do that? They put in some heavily Dem areas of north Middlesex which, when they left Lance's district, made it even safer for him. Perhaps I thought the district was more competitive before than it was, because it looks pretty damn uncompetitive now. Didn't they add Perth Amboy, too?

There's a line between partisanship and creepy racism that gets crossed a little too often.

They gave Plainfield to Rush Holt.

Yes, gubernatorial numbers by themselves are somewhat variable. But there are many more factors at play.

The Democrats have 2 assemblymen in Diane Allen's district. They can't compete in the 8th legislative district or the Ocean County portion of the district. The Democrats had a couple Burlington Countywide officials for the first time in decades but were swept out of office in 2011.

The difference between Burlington County and Middlesex County is also in registration and the relative strength of the parties. The parties are about even in Burlington and the Democrats are about 17 points ahead in Middlesex (as of a couple years ago). The fact that Christie won NJ-06 certainly counts for very little and everyone knew it; we saw GOP legislative nominees get drenched in 2011 in the legislative races in Northern Middlesex County.

In addition NJ-03 spans 2 media markets.


Edit: This is why Christie won NJ-06.

Turnout in Perth Amboy: 30%
New Brunswick: 28%
Piscataway:  40%
Carteret: 39%



In 2008 all of these were much closer to the County average and to the Republican areas of the county.

John Adler was one of the first Democrats to seek an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts as he saw the writing on the wall. He voted against Obamacare.

He won in a wave year in an open seat, who put up more than half his margin of victory in Cherry Hill, and who got lucky with lower turnout in the Ocean County side of the district. Good luck repeating the above.

Jim Saxton already won that seat in a snoozefest with 59% in 2006.

The House only tends to flip in waves anyway, so it's not like Democrats were going to take the House in a neutral cycle. NJ-3 is one of those seats that is not wave proof and with Democrats have a low defense list, when the next wave comes, seats like that are going to be on the table.

In NJ 3? Yes, there are two of them. Neither of them would beat Runyan.

how about Conservative NYers moving to both of those counties.

Apparently I never hit send on this post last night, but I crunched the numbers on te Democratic map that went unchosen. It too ceded NJ-07 by making it heavily GOP. Predictably, though, it was far kinder to Democrats in NJ-05 (an R +1.5 district was created for Garrett and Rothman to duke it out in). It also put NJ-03 on the table by making it more Democratic, improving Dem performance there to D +1.5.

Presumably, it wasn't picked because the GOP map was more "minority friendly" (opening up the possibility of a minority following Pascrell) and because the Dem map was far more likely to divide up townships. Pallone's district, for example, contained many fractional towns in Monmouth in an effort to shore him up.

Primary time!

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/rep_steve_rothman_to_challenge.html

Thrown into a politically unfriendly district last week, U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman today signaled he intends to challenge a fellow Democrat in June’s primary.

Bergen County Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato would not comment on whether Rothman has decided to run. But he said if he does, Rothman will have the support of the Bergen County Democratic Organization.


Doh. Brutality time!

Numbers heavily favor Rothman.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/Rothman_to_challenge_Pascrell_for_9th_District.html

Rothman currently represents about 54 percent of the people who live in the new 9th District.

Pascrell, who revels in street-level politicking, promises to be a tough primary opponent. But Rothman no doubt recognized that that 61 percent of the 114,000 registered Democrats in the new district are among his constituents in the existing 9th District.

This was Pascrell's worst nightmare. Several years ago, when I was working for a certain website that deals with NJ politics, I called him up on an article I was writing about just such a scenario: New Jersey losing a house seat in redistricting. Early speculation was that the seat would come from slow-growing North Jersey, and since it couldn't be Payne or Sires, Pascrell and Rothman would be the ones getting screwed. Pascrell's office was very concerned, and kept asking "but this is just speculation, right? You haven't heard anything, have you?"

I wouldn't say that Pascrell is totally out of it yet -- I'd expect Passaic County Democrats to be more loyal to Pascrell in general than Bergen County Democrats to Rothman. I figure the Passaic County line is stronger. And I think you may have a lot of suburban Republicans and Independents in Passaic very interested in turning out and voting in the Democratic primary for a congressman they like. It has the potential to be a real good fight.

Then again, since he's 74, I figure Pascrell may just retire. I bet that's what Rothman's hoping.

How many suburban Republicans and Independents exist in that district's part of Passaic County, exactly? Roughly speaking, Obama got almost 80% of the vote in that section of the district I believe compared to about 60% in the Bergen portion of the district.

I can believe that Pascrell has a suburban following in Essex County, though.