How Redistricting Has Affected New Jersey’s Congressional Races
New Jersey’s new congressional map was drawn by a bipartisan commission … but commissions don’t always work as intended. New Jersey’s consists of six members picked by Democrats and six members picked by Republicans; each side proposed its own congressional map that benefited its party.
The decision on the new map thus fell to the member’s tiebreaking 13th member, who is ostensibly nonpartisan but was Democrats’ first choice for the job. And rather than draw a congressional map that struck a compromise between the Democratic and Republican plans, he simply voted to approve the Democratic map because, in his words, “the last redistricting map, it was drawn by the Republicans.” (He later walked back those comments.)
As a result, New Jersey’s congressional map is unusually biased for one drawn by a commission. It has an efficiency gap of D+16, indicating that Democrats would be expected to win 16 percent more seats under this map than under a perfectly fair one.
In terms of its effect on the 2022 election, the map shores up many of the Democratic-held seats that have been competitive in recent cycles, like the 3rd, 5th and 11th. As a result, no matter who wins the GOP primaries in those seats, it’ll be an uphill battle to make it to Congress unless the national environment is really Republican-leaning. However, the map does plunge Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski into more danger in the now-redder 7th District. Former state Sen. Tom Kean Jr. would be in an excellent position to beat Malinowski if he wins the GOP primary today.