New Jersey on UK-Sized Constituencies

[Verily]

It was a ton of work, but I've finally finished it. If someone can advise me as to a good place to upload Excel sheets, you can see how each district is broken down. I tried to approximate 70,000 people for district without crossing county lines except in cases where I combined counties to make quotas more even and without crossing town lines unless absolutely necessary. The geography of some counties (I'm looking at you, Ocean County), made numerous splits unfortunately necessary. In my home Bergen County, I divided no towns at all despite it containing 12 districts of its own and one shared with Hudson County; Bergen County is definitely my best achievement in all of this.

New Jersey is probably a relatively easy state to do as it has mostly small municipalities geographically, yet all of its counties are large enough for at least 1 seat (Salem County at 0.9 quotas is the smallest; County of Salem is the smallest district by over 1000 people).

Edit: Added party rankings for Bergen-Hudson and Passaic; I don't know enough about local politics to do an assessment of other county groups.


      
Atlantic-Cape May      
   Atlantic City   74214
   Pleasantville   69353
   Mays Landing and Hammonton   73526
   Ocean City   68503
   Cape May   69282
Bergen-Hudson      
   Ramapo Valley   69042 (Safe Republican)
   Ridgewood and Saddle River   71973 (Safe Republican)
   Westwood and Old Tappan   71182 (Likely Republican)
   Upper Northern Valley   69896 (Lean Republican)
   Lower Northern Valley   71578 --- My Constituency :-) (Safe Democrat)
   Fair Lawn and Paramus   68920 (Likely Democrat)
   Teaneck   68533 (Safe Democrat)
   Hackensack   71395 (Safe Democrat)
   Passaic Valley   67394 (Lean Democrat)
   South Hackensack and Lodi   70681 (Toss-up)
   Rutherford and The Meadowlands   67307 (Toss-up)
   Palisades North   69125 (Safe Democrat)
   Palisades South   72092 (Safe Democrat)
   Kearny and Secaucus   73245 (Likely Democrat [not so certain, could be more marginal])
   West New York   72667 (Safe Democrat)
   Union City   72088 (Safe Democrat)
   Jersey City North West   73000 (Safe Democrat, as are all other Jersey City districts)
   Jersey City North East and Hoboken   73078
   Jersey City South and Bayonne   72842
   Jersey City East   73527
   Jersey City West   73528
Burlington      
   Pine Barrens   67714
   Medford and Evesham   68701
   Moorestown and Maple Shade   73096
   Mount Holly   68564
   Burlington   72417
   Palmyra and Willingboro   72900
Camden-Gloucester      
   Camden Center   68000
   Camden East and Collingswood   68564
   Haddonfield and Westville   71187
   Bellmawr and Voorhees   68327
   Gloucester   71350
   Cherry Hill   69965
   Berlin   68429
   Franklinville and Williamstown   72760
   Washington and Deptford   68877
   Woodbury and Swedesboro   68456
   Glassboro   66791
Cumberland      
   Vineland   70089
   Bridgeton and Millville   76349
Essex-Union      
   Newark Center   68400
   Newark Branch Brook   68400
   Port Newark   68400
   Newark Westside   68346
   Irvington   69695
   Summit and Millburn   70193
   East Orange   68190
   Orange   69832
   Livingston and Caldwell   67378
   Verona   70481
   Belleville and Nutley   68290
   Bloomfield and Montclair   69954
   Elizabeth Crane Square   70000
   Elizabeth Elmora and Linden North   69568
   Linden South and Rahway   70005
   Roselle and Cranford   68961
   Union   69152
   Plainfield   69735
   Westfield   69560
Hunterdon-Warren      
   Flemington   74634
   Clinton and Washington   75454
   Phillipsburg and Hackettstown   73139
Mercer      
   Trenton Center   70000
   Trenton Gardens and Hamilton   70000
   Trenton North and Ewing   70866
   Princeton   72969
   Hightstown   66158
Middlesex      
   Jamesburg and Spotswood   67171
   Kendall Park   67734
   South River and Milltown   69078
   New Brunswick   68859
   Piscataway and Middlesex   67022
   South Plainfield and Edison   67650
   Menlo Park   68687
   Cheesequake   68456
   Amboy South and Sayreville   68290
   Amboy North and Carteret   68219
   Iselin   69000
Monmouth-Ocean      
   Freehold   68580
   Marlboro   69916
   North Shore   72691
   Lakewood   72352
   Middletown and Highlands   69802
   Red Bank and Eatontown   68027
   Long Branch   68923
   Lakehurst   72613
   Asbury Park   68797
   Wall and Beaches   67608
   Howell and Brick   72490
   Toms River, Silver Bay   71928
   Toms River, Barnegat   71607
   Point Pleasant   72086
   Beechwood and Lacey   72305
   Little Egg Harbor   70711
Morris-Somerset      
   Butler and Lincoln Park   69227
   Dover   71259
   Chester   68725
   Mount Olive and Jefferson   71843
   Parsippany   68637
   Madison and Whippany   68224
   Morristown and Bernardsville   69642
   North Plainfield and Far Hills   72798
   Somerville   69104
   Somerset South West   69754
   Bound Brook and Somerset   68490
Passaic      
   City of Passaic   68861 (Safe Democrat)
   Clifton   68672 (Safe Democrat)
   Paterson Lake View   68222 (Safe Democrat)
   Paterson Eastside   68000 (Safe Democrat)
   Paterson Garrett Mountain   67731 (Safe Democrat)
   Haledon and Pompton Plains   70241 (Lean Republican)
   Bloomingdale and West Milford   67322 (Safe Republican)
Salem      
   County of Salem   65285
Sussex      
   Andover and Hopatcong   71759
   North Sussex   72407

[Verily]

How far did you go out with the Rutherford + The Meadows.  The current EnCap is swinging Rutherford hard-right, while East Rutherford is moving slowly left due to some of the decisions of the mayor.  However, Lyndhurst is conservative as I believe Carlstadt is, but North Arlington is rather liberal.  However, great analysis

All five were within two points of 50-50 in 2004. Rutherford voted 52% Kerry; East Rutherford voted 50% Kerry with Bush on 49%; Bush won North Arlington by 6 votes; Carlstadt and Lyndhurst both voted 50% Bush with Kerry on 49%. That's the entire district, though I considered splitting off some of Kearny to add to the district as its the smallest district in Bergen-Hudson. Easily the most marginal district.

I can't imagine any of them are actually swinging substantially to the right or to the Republicans at anything more than the local level; much of the Republican vote in Southwest Bergen County is the slowly decaying remnant of the Italian-American Republican machine.

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I love the fact that you named one of the districts Cheesequake.

I had to. I had hoped to be able to include a district called "Hoboken and Weehawken" and one including Ho-Ho-Kus in the name, but the opportunities didn't arise.

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Just for fun, I made a map of the Bergen County seats. Note that "Fair Lawn" was misspelled "Fairlawn" on the base map. I'm not fond of the shape of the Teaneck district, which should really contain Bogota and omit New Milford, but that made for too small a seat.

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The problem with more maps is that most other counties have split towns, sometimes split many ways, and I don't have data at the district level to determine which areas go where. I may do more when I get a chance, but they won't look as good as this one.

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Well, I'm feeling generous, so here's Hudson County. The borders in North Bergen and Jersey City are arbitrary (JC is Jersey City):

Another good name for Jersey City Docks/Jersey City East would be Jersey City Liberty Park.

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And Passaic County. The divisions of Paterson and Clifton are arbitrary. I don't like the names for the Passaic seats; Eastside is a district of Paterson, but the name stinks. I considered Paterson Silk District, since that was where the old silk factories were, but that isn't a great name either. Paterson West almost became Paterson Garrett Mountain, but I'm not sure if Garrett Mountain would even be wholly within that seat.

Notice the immense size difference in districts between upper and lower Passaic County. It's the most arbitrary county I've ever seen.

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If they actually were U.K constituencies, Paterson Eastside would likely just be Paterson East, while Paterson Lakeview would likely just be Paterson South.

I did that in some areas (Jersey City), but I did try to be more creative from time to time. Larger cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, etc. get names other than "Central" and "Northeast".

[Verily]

I changed Newark Westside to Newark West for this map.

The Orange district is horrendous; it contains heavily black and urban poor Orange and heavily white and extremely affluent South Orange as well as parts of West Orange that are similar to South Orange. I might be accused of racial gerrymandering with that one. By contrast, the East Orange district is 89% black, reflecting the City of East Orange. Also, the irritating municipal boundary between Irvington and Newark makes the Newark West district a wonky shape; it might be better to slice up Irvington to make the districts well-formed.

I couldn't find a nice labeled map of Essex County, so you'll have to do without municipality labels. There's a good labeled map on Wikipedia, but it's unusable for image editing.

[Verily]

My thanks to the Union County Democratic Party for the very nice map. Union County's constituencies turned out nicely, I think.

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Morris County, not too exciting. Victory Gardens gave me headaches. Counting only Morris County, though, I managed to make do with only one municipality split (Mount Olive Twp); Morristown and Bernardsville contains a municipality split in Somerset County.

I'll offer my opinion on political leanings here, too. Madison and Whippany would be safe for the Democrats, and Parsippany likewise, though slightly more competitive. Morristown and Bernardsville and Dover would be competitive but probably Republican, and Chester, Butler and Lincoln Park, and Mount Olive and Jefferson would be safe for the Republicans.

[Verily]

Here's Somerset County. The name "Somerset South West" is feeble but the best I could create.

This one is difficult for political leanings. Somerset South West is clearly heavily Republican, but all the other districts contain Democratic and Republican areas. My guess is that Somerville is somewhat safe for the Democrats, North Plainfield and Far Hills is somewhat safe for the Republicans, and Bound Brook and Somerset is a complete toss-up.

[Verily]

Here's Somerset County:

All but Bound Brook/Somerset (which leans Democratic) are Republican.  Somerville would probably be somewhat competitive, but still GOP.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Somerset County as a whole is about R+1. The Somerset South West district is easily R+10, which means the rest of the county leans marginally Democratic. Of course, some of that is concentrated in Bound Brook and Somerset, which is about D+3 (you're right, I was underestimating the size of Somerset itself), but Somerville should also be about D+3 with the Democratic-leaning Somerville, Raritan and Manville balancing out the GOP-leaning Bridgewater. North Plainfield and Far Hills contains Democratic areas in the east but is probably around R+5 overall. The Somerset areas of Morristown and Bernardsville should be around R+3; Bernardsville is marginal, but the Bernards Twp areas are Republican.

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Middlesex County:

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Not the most exciting county, but here's Sussex. Both districts are obviously Republican, Andover and Hopatcong somewhat less so than North Sussex but still quite safe.

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More small counties; Warren and Hunterdon.

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Mercer County.

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Obviously, in Mercer, all but Hamilton would be Democratic.  The Republican-leaning towns on the Hunterdon border would be totally overwhelmed by the Princeton slug of super Dems.

Well, there are hardly any people in those towns, so one would expect them to be overwhelmed. The real choice was whether to overwhelm them with Princeton or Ewing.

I wonder why you think Trenton Gardens and Hamilton, and not Hightstown, would be the vulnerable district.

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Monmouth County. The shore counties were all stupidly difficult because of the tiny hamlets on the coast and enormous townships inland.