New Jersey remains blue, registration data shows

New Jersey now has 1,079,052 more Democrats than Republicans, representing just miniscule change over the last month, according to voter registration data from the state Division of Elections.

The state has 12,461 less voters than it did on January 1.  Election officials attribute the reduction – just a little less than two-tenths of one percent of more than 6.5 million voters – to the cleaning up of voter rolls after the November general election.

The result is a gain of 355 more Republicans and a loss of 1,315 Democrats and 12,024 unaffiliated (commonly called independents) voters.

The New Jersey electorate is now 39% Democratic, 22% Republican, and 27% Unaffiliated.

In 2001, the last time Republicans had a governor and majorities in both houses of the Legislature, 55% of New Jersey voters were not affiliated with either political party.  In eighteen years, that number has dropped by 16 percentage points.

Democrats made up 25.3% of the voters in 2001, while 19.5% were registered as Republicans. In raw numbers — and understanding that we’re not talking about the same voters – as unaffiliateds have lost 16% of their market share since 2001, and more than 80% of those voters are now registered as Democrats.

The million-Democrat edge came for the first time in 2020.  For the first time in state history, Democrats outnumbered unaffiliateds.

Despite the blueness of New Jersey, Republicans have held the governor’s office for 24 of the last 39 years.  Democrats have not re-elected a governor since 1977 and Republicans have done so three times since then.

The GOP currently hold legislative seats in four districts where Democrats outnumber Republicans: the 2nd in Atlantic, the Burlington-based 11th, the Union-based 21st, and the 39th in Bergen.   Democrats don’t occupy any districts where Republicans have a registration edge.

Democrats continue to have a voter registration edge in 11 of 12 congressional districts, with only the 4th having more Republicans than Democrats.

Republicans control Atlantic County, which has 18,257 more Democrats than Republicans, Monmouth — there are 1,308 more Democrats than Republicans in one of the state’s premier GOP counties — and Salem , where the GOP is outnumbered by just 1,807. All other county governments are controlled by the party which has the most voters.