Attention County Chairs and Boards of Elections: New Jersey Has A New Congressional Map

Public Service Announcement

With the nominating season coming up for New Jersey’s political parties, Boards of Elections and party leaders should be aware that New Jersey lost a seat in congress due to the 2010 census that indicated that our population growth was slower than other states.  As a result, a new map of congressional districts was approved last December.

One might think that Boards of Election and party leaders would be aware of this already.  Not necessarily.

Peter Carroll, a Republican County Committee member from Middlesex Boro in Middlesex County keeps on top of these things.  When meeting with his Municipal Chair, Mike Hompesch, to complete his registration form for the county nominating convention coming up on March 24, Carroll indicated on the form that he lives in the 12th congressional district.  “Are you sure?” Carroll reports that Hompesch asked, “all the information from the county says Middlesex Boro is in the 6th district.”

After some back and forth with the Middlesex County GOP, Carroll called the Middlesex County Board of Elections this morning.  “Middlesex Boro is in the 6th congressional district,” the nice lady on the phone told Carroll.  “But what about the new map?” Carroll asked.   After a brief hold, the nice lady came back on the phone and told Carroll that he was right and the Board of Elections had not updated their computers yet.

Carroll reports that he has heard from Middlesex GOP Vice Chair Sylvia Engel that the correction has been made for the March 24 GOP convention.

County Chairs of both parties, and Boards of Elections from all counties should take note.  The new congressional map can be found here.

This has been a public service announcement from MoreMonmouthMusings.

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The New Congressional Map

The new congressional map can be viewed here.

Give it a minute to download.  It’s a large file.
A few local observations:

Republican Chris Smith will represent most of Monmouth County in the 4th district.

Democrat Rush Holt, 12th district, will no longer represent any of Monmouth County.

Democrat Frank Pallone’s 6thdistrict includes all of coastal Monmouth and Marlboro.  Middletown and Marlboro appear to be entirely in Pallone’s district.  Under the old map it was split between Pallone and Holt.

At first glance, the new 6th district looks to be more competive than the last.  Holt took all or part of Plainfield, a strongly Democratic town where Pallone dominated in 2010 by a huge margin.  Middletown is a large Republican strong hold. Marlboro usually votes Republican except on the municipal level where they have voted in the “LaHornicca” Democrats.

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Republicans Win The Congressional Map Battle

The New Jersey congressional delegation will likely be equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, 6 of each, after the next election, thanks to John Farmer, Dean of Rutgers Law School and the tie breaking member of the redistricting commission.  Farmer told the partisan members of the commission that he would vote for the Republicans’ map when the commission meets in at the Statehouse this morning, according to reports on Politickernj and NJ.com.

The new map will combine portions of the current 5th, 8th and 9th districts and pit incumbent congressmen Scott Garrett (R) and Steve Rothman (D) in a district that gives Republicans a 4% advantage based upon historical voting patterns.

According to the Politickernj story, the new map gives Congressman Chris Smith a larger portion of Monmouth County than his previous 4th district.  The district remains safely Republican for Smith, New Jersey’s longest serving congressman.

The 6th and 12th districts, represented by Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, respectively, remain safe for the Democratic incumbents, according to Politickernj.

The 7th district, represented by Republican Leonard Lance will now be a safer district for the incumbent.

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