U.S. House Redistricting: New Jersey

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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.

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.

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Republican picks Republican map.

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.

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

Slam dunk districts for the GOP.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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

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.

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

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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.

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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%

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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And even adjusting for the 2010 numbers, Runyan only won it by 5 points in a heavily GOP year.

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

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.

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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!

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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.

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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.