Democrats hold onto majorities in NJ Senate, Assembly, defying predictions of GOP insurgence

New Jersey Democrats have held onto control of both houses of the state Legislature — defeating some political observers’ expectations Republicans could take a majority in a chamber of the Legislature for the first time since 1999.

In the state Senate, Democrats maintained the same 25-15 majority they’d had going into the election, according to the Associated Press.

As of mid-day Wednesday, the Associated Press had called 49 Assembly seats for Democrats and 27 for Republicans. That was already enough to slightly improve on the Democrats’ existing 46-34 advantage, even with another six seats yet to be called. Assembly races remained undecided in two South Jersey districts: LD-3 in Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem counties, and LD-8 in Atlantic, Burlington and Camden counties.

All 40 state Senate seats and all 80 Assembly seats were on the ballot.

“There’s a reason Democrats had a good night in New Jersey – in the face of cynical, bad-faith attacks from Republicans, Democrats ran disciplined races talking to working families about the issues they care about,” said Dan Bryan, a former spokesperson for Gov. Phil Murphy and an adviser to both the Democratic state Senate and Assembly campaign committees.

Bryan said affordability, the economy, gun safety and protecting abortion rights were winning issues for Democrats up and down the state.

Many political observers believed Republicans would gain seats, or even potentially control of one chamber for the first time since 1999, citing the momentum of a parents’ rights movement that is seeking more control over school boards, concerns over high taxes and battles over Murphy’s ambitious climate change agenda.

This year, the parents’ rights movement was at the center of pitched battles over school policies, based on state guidance, that prohibit schools from outing transgender students to their parents in most cases. Some political analysts and Democratic strategists expected that to drive conservative parents to the polls.

Parents who began organizing against mask mandates in schools during the pandemic had since turned their attention to sex education and policies meant to protect LGBTQ+ students, saying they were being shut out of decisions that affect their children.

But Bryan advised Democratic candidates for the Legislature not to get drawn into fights about transgender kids in schools or Murphy’s climate agenda — including plans for offshore wind power — because the polling on what issues mattered to voters was clear.

A poll released the morning of Election Day by the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University backs up that strategy. It found that the overriding issue that was most important to voters was the cost of living. A combined 40% identified high taxes, affordability or the economy as the issues most important to them.

“At the end of the day, New Jersey voters will always be concerned with pocketbook issues first and foremost,” Ashley Koning, an assistant research professor and director of the polling center, said in a statement about the poll.

She said culture war issues might galvanize some people in each party’s base or even persuade some people in the middle, but ultimately, the economy, cost of living and taxes would be most on voters’ minds.

In recent years, Republicans have been making gains in the state, especially in South and Central Jersey and at the Shore. In 2021, Murphy, a Democrat, won a second term by a smaller margin than expected and Republicans gained a total of seven seats in the state Legislature.

The most notable Republican victory that year was pulled off by Durr, a Republican trucker with no name recognition and no campaign cash who defeated the most powerful member of the Legislature, then-Senate President Steven Sweeney.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew — whose 2nd Congressional District includes all of Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Salem counties, as well as parts of Gloucester and Ocean counties — switched from Democrat to Republican during Donald Trump’s first impeachment.

Republicans hoped to capitalize on that momentum. They pushed back on Murphy’s clean energy policies, most notably on the Jersey Shore, where a startling number of dead whales have washed up on beaches since 2016 — including more than a dozen since last December.

Several Republican legislators have blamed the whale deaths on Murphy’s plans for wind farms off the Jersey Coast, even though no wind turbines are yet in place, and the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration says there’s no credible link between whale deaths and wind farm development. The oil and gas industry has also spread that message in a national campaign against renewable energy.

A Monmouth University poll this summer found support for wind had dropped off sharply since 2019, when 76% of respondents supported wind energy. Republican support dropped the most, from 69% to just 28% in that time. And calls from New Jersey Republicans for a moratorium on wind development have gained momentum.

Republicans also criticized a state incentive plan to convince consumers to convert to electric stoves, wrongly described by some Republicans as the state trying to take away gas stoves.

“So these kinds of issues percolated to the top,” Ben Dworkin, director of the Rowan University Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship, said before the election. “They were generally beneficial to the Republicans in that it helped motivate their base.”

But Democrats still headed into Election Day with a huge advantage from mailed ballots, a strategy that Bryan said is transforming get-out-the-vote activities.

The state has a million more Democratic voters and turnout among Democrats has been on the rise since the state made it easier to vote by mail. Political observers say opposition to mailed ballots by former President Donald Trump has depressed their use among Republicans.

Heading into Election Day, tallies by an Associated Press researcher showed Democrats had returned more than three times as many ballots by mail as Republicans.

Campaign volunteers call up voters who request mailed ballots when those ballots haven’t yet been received by county election departments, and prod those voters to stick their ballots in the mail. In a low-turnout election like this one, Bryan said, that can be the difference between victory and defeat.

This post has been updated to reflected more confirmed election results.