U.S. House Redistricting: New Jersey

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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)

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Former Attorney General John Farmer 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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

Orthodox Jews were a big part of their growth

no one cares ~

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

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.

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

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

Bergen County Surrogate is a county-wide elected position.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Man, I hope they offered Rothman some lube first.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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.