How every town voted in N.J.’s 2023 State Senate elections

All the votes have been counted and certified; New Jersey’s 2023 elections are officially part of the history books now.

With the dust fully settled, Democrats will begin next legislative session with a 25-15 majority in the Senate and a 52-28 majority in the Assembly, a net gain of six seats overall (arguably seven; Democrats technically had a net gain of zero in the Senate, but that was only because they lost party-switching State Sen. Sam Thompson’s solid-red seat).

The statewide Senate popular vote went for Democrats 54%-45%, with two deep-blue seats left uncontested by Republicans. That’s down from President Joe Biden’s 16-point margin in 2020, up from Gov. Phil Murphy’s three-point margin in 2021, and similar to congressional Democrats’ 10-point margin in 2022. (For simplicity’s sake, this article will only look at Senate results; results varied somewhat downballot, but in most cases weren’t too far off the Senate topline.)

The map looks much like election maps in New Jersey usually look: a wide diagonal band of blue towns running from Bergen County to the suburbs of Camden, with a few other blue areas scattered outside of the main urban corridor. The rest of the state – huge geographically, but comparatively sparse in population – largely went for Republicans.

Under the hood, there were some important variations on the usual New Jersey election map, with individual Democrats and Republicans breaking through their districts’ partisanship and winning towns that typically opt for the other party.

For the full dataset behind these maps, CLICK HERE. And if you have questions, corrections, or would like a map of a specific Senate result, reach out to [email protected].

Changes from 2021

The baseline that most people have compared the 2023 elections to is the 2021 gubernatorial election, when Murphy won re-election just 51%-48% against Republican Jack Ciattarelli. The big question this year was whether Democrats could improve on Murphy’s total and hold onto their robust legislative majorities – and they very much did, though the swing was uneven across the state.

There were two competitive districts in particular where Democrats did dramatically better than in 2021: the 3rd district, where former Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Paulsboro) unseated State Sen. Ed Durr (R-Logan), and the 11th district, where State Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Long Branch) won re-election by an astonishing 60%-39% margin. Each win was more than 20 percentage points better than Murphy’s total in those districts.

Democrats in several other heavily contested districts like the 4th, 8th, 16th, and 38th also outran Murphy by substantial amounts.

And even in places that didn’t feature high-profile races, there was a general pro-Democratic slant, especially in places with strong incumbents. State Sens. Paul Sarlo (R-Wood-Ridge) and Joe Vitale (D-Woodbridge), for example, won re-election by 23 and 26 percentage points in districts that had backed Murphy by single digits.

As for the Republican upside, it was mostly confined to districts held by a few key senators, most notably State Sens. Mike Testa (R-Vineland), Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), and Holly Schepisi (R-River Vale). 

The biggest single-town overperformance from Republicans came in the 30th district, where Sen. Bob Singer (R-Lakewood) did a staggering 62 points better than Ciattarelli in the heavily Orthodox Jewish township of Lakewood. That’s a double-edged sword, however, since Lakewood’s bloc voting also led to the election of Democratic Assemblyman-elect Avi Schnall (D-Lakewood).

On the Democratic side, the town-by-town award goes to Gopal, who did 83 points better than Murphy in the tiny borough of Deal. Looking at larger towns, the biggest overperformance came in Wood-Ridge, which Sarlo won by 39 points two years after Murphy lost it by five; Sarlo, who is also Wood-Ridge’s popular mayor, likely got a boost from the fact that his mayorship was up this year as well.

Turnout

Overall turnout in this year’s State Senate elections was 1,706,595, or 26% of the state’s registered voters. (The total number of people who came out to the polls was a little higher, since some people cast a ballot but left the Senate race blank.)

That’s substantially down from the 2,614,886 people who voted in the 2021 gubernatorial election and the 4,549,353 people who voted in the 2020 presidential election. But the drop was not at all unexpected; New Jersey’s turnout typically craters in off-off-years like 2023 where only state legislative offices are on the ballot.

Without any statewide race to draw voters to the polls, there were major turnout disparities district-by-district. New Jersey, and the rest of the United States, almost always witnesses a disparity between urban, majority-minority areas and suburban, mostly white areas, but this year’s divide was especially stark.

For example, the 21st district in the well-off suburbs of Union and Somerset Counties cast 64,523 votes this year – a nearly seven-to-one advantage over the 29th district in Newark’s heavily Hispanic neighborhoods, which cast cast just 9,310 votes. (In the 2020 presidential election, when turnout was sky-high across the board, the 21st district had a much smaller two-and-a-half-to-one turnout advantage over the 29th district.)

That helps explain why Democrats won the popular vote this year by a modest nine percentage points even while seeing strong results in most of the state. Democrats got the votes they needed to get in most key districts, but since the 17 lowest-turnout districts were all won by Democrats, their statewide total was drowned out somewhat by higher-turnout Republican districts.

Flipped towns

While doing six points better than Murphy statewide, Senate Democrats also managed to flip 48 towns that Murphy lost two years ago.

10 of those towns were won by Burzichelli in the 3rd district, and another nine by Gopal in the 11th district. The rest were scattered across the state: Democratic Senate candidates in 18 other districts flipped at least one Ciattarelli-won town, including 10 towns in parts of South Jersey outside of the 3rd district.

On the flipside, Republicans flipped an eclectic mix of 10 towns that Ciattarelli had lost. Testa carried the city of Cape May; State Sen.-elect Carmen Amato (R-Berkeley) managed to win Harvey Cedars, typically the most Democratic town in Ocean County; Parsippany supported State Sen. Joe Pennacchio (R-Montville) after voting for Murphy by five votes; and three Murphy-won Bergen County towns – Moonachie in the 38th district and Woodcliff Lake and Dumont in the 39th district – went for Republicans.

The big winner, though, was Bramnick, who carried four Murphy towns: Dunellen, New Providence, Summit, and his hometown of Westfield. This year was just an all-around terrible one for Summit and Westfield Democrats, who lost every municipal seat on the ballot as well.

(Bramnick’s district wasn’t the only place where local races seemed to have up-ballot effects. In deep-blue Millburn, where Republicans flipped two council seats, State Sen.-elect John McKeon underperformed Murphy by 15 points; in solid-red Brick, where Democratic Mayor Lisa Crate easily won re-election, State Sen. Greg McGuckin did 13 points worse than Ciattarelli.)

Comparing this year’s results to the 2020 presidential election, there are a lot more towns that flipped from Republican to Democrat. Former President Donald Trump was uniquely unpopular in much of New Jersey, and Senate Republicans were able to win back a large number of towns he lost – 76 of them, to be exact. (That’s more than one in every eight towns in the state.)

A huge number of those towns were located in three key districts: Bramnick’s 21st district, State Sen. Anthony M. Bucco (R-Boonton)’s 25th district, and Schepisi’s 39th district. Bramnick flipped 14 Biden towns, Bucco flipped six, and Schepisi flipped 15.

As for Trump-won towns carried by Democrats, there were 14 of them, including four Gloucester County towns won by Burzichelli and two Monmouth towns won by Gopal. Five other scattered small towns – Mansfield (in Burlington County), Milltown, South Amboy, Winfield, and Lyndhurst – opted for Democratic Senate candidates as well.

And in Hunterdon County, the Trump-won towns of Delaware and Milford went for State Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Lawrence) and 23rd district Senate candidate Denise King, respectively. The county’s overall GOP popular vote margin was just 53%-46% – an intimidating sign for Hunterdon Republicans, who face a real risk in next year’s presidential election of losing the county for the first time since Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 landslide.

Once again, click here for the full dataset behind these maps, 

Ciattarelli-Democrat towns: East Greenwich, Greenwich (Gloucester), Mantua, National Park, Pitman, West Deptford, Westville, Woolwich, Carneys Point, Woodstown, Monroe (Gloucester), Mount Ephraim, Woodbury Heights, Berlin Borough, Cinnaminson, Florence, Riverside, Egg Harbor City, Mansfield (Burlington), Pemberton Township, Allenhurst, Deal, Eatontown, Fair Haven, Interlaken, Neptune City, Ocean (Monmouth), Shrewsbury Borough, Tinton Falls, Jamesburg, Delaware, Clinton Town, High Bridge, Hillsborough, Milltown, South Plainfield, South Amboy, Winfield, Califon, Milford, Roseland, Lake Como, Nutley, East Rutherford, Lyndhurst, Wood-Ridge, South Hackensack, Woodland Park

Murphy-Republican towns: Cape May, Harvey Cedars, Dunellen, New Providence, Summit, Westfield, Parsippany, Moonachie, Dumont, Woodcliff Lake

Trump-Democrat towns: East Greenwich, Greenwich (Gloucester), Mantua, National Park, Mansfield (Burlington), Allenhurst, Deal, Delaware, Milltown, South Amboy, Winfield, Milford, Roseland, Lyndhurst

Biden-Republican towns: Cape May, Woodbine, Millville, Vineland, Egg Harbor Township, Galloway, Hamilton (Atlantic), Somers Point, Ventnor, Chesterfield, Hainesport, Medford, Medford Lakes, Pemberton Borough, Wrightstown, Harvey Cedars, South Toms River, Matawan, Aberdeen, Highlands, Little Silver, Marlboro, South River, Sayreville, Dunellen, Chatham Township, Long Hill, Bernards, Bernardsville, Green Brook, Peapack & Gladstone, Warren, Watchung, Berkeley Heights, Garwood, New Providence, Summit, Westfield, Bedminster, Bridgewater, Raritan Borough, Phillipsburg, Mount Olive, Mendham Borough, Mendham Township, Mine Hill, Rockaway Borough, Rockaway Township, Wharton, Boonton Town, Denville, Parsippany, Elmwood Park, Englewood Cliffs, Hasbrouck Heights, Moonachie, Rochelle Park, Allendale, Alpine, Dumont, Hillsdale, Ho-Ho-Kus, Mahwah, Midland Park, Montvale, Northvale, Norwood, Ramsey, River Vale, Upper Saddle River, Waldwick, Woodcliff Lake, North Caldwell, West Caldwell, Hawthorne, Little Falls