U.S. House Redistricting: New Jersey

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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).



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)

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.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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.

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

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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?

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

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.

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.