U.S. House Redistricting: New Jersey

[traininthedistance]

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.

[traininthedistance]

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.

[traininthedistance]

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.

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

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.

[traininthedistance]

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

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.

[traininthedistance]

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:



Closeup on the Northeast:



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.

[traininthedistance]

Man, I hope they offered Rothman some lube first.

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.

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.

[traininthedistance]

Republicans even made Pallone's seat less Democratic.

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?

They gave Plainfield to Rush Holt.