The 16th district has remained in Democratic hands, with State Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-South Brunswick) and Assemblyman Roy Freiman (D-Hillsborough) winning re-election and Mitchelle Drulis claiming her first term in the Assembly, the New Jersey Globe projects. Republicans mounted a serious effort to take back the district they controlled only a few years ago, but fell short once again.
As of 12:19 a.m., Zwicker leads former U.S. Rep. Michael Pappas (R-Branchburg) by a hefty 55%-43% margin. For the district’s two Assembly seats, Freiman and Drulis have 28% and 27% of the vote, respectively, ahead of Princeton accountant Grace Zhang and Clinton Councilman Ross Traphagen, who have 23% and 22%.
The 16th district was once a bastion for the New Jersey GOP, electing all-Republican legislative delegations from its creation in 1973 until 2015; among the legislators who once represented the district was former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Hillsborough), the Republican nominee for governor in 2021.
But after a Democratic-drawn map implemented in 2011 made the district much more competitive, Democrats began racking up wins. Zwicker first won an Assembly seat in 2015, defeating a Republican incumbent by 79 votes; Freiman followed in 2017; and Zwicker flipped the district’s open Senate seat in 2021.
Zwicker’s successor, Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer (D-Montgomery), is retiring this year after just one term in the legislature. Democrats quickly rallied behind Drulis, who had worked as a staffer for Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) and Assemblyman Joe Egan (D-New Brunswick), to take Jaffer’s spot on the Democratic ticket.
Republicans weren’t willing to let Democrats run away with the district, however. Pappas – who served one term in Congress in the 1990s and was the GOP nominee against Zwicker two years ago – and his running mates built up a solid campaign that hit the Democratic slate on a few key issues like property taxes and education that were part of the GOP playbook statewide.
In the end, though, the Democrats had too many advantages for Republicans to overcome. The 16th district is, by now, quite Democratic-leaning – it voted for Gov. Phil Murphy by five points in 2021 and for Joe Biden by 21 points in 2020 – and, like elsewhere in the state, Democrats had a huge financial edge that they used to pummel their Republican opponents, particularly on the issue of abortion.
With yet another Republican loss on the books, this year may mark the end of the 16th district’s days as a top battleground. Then again, the same thing was said after the 2021 election, so there’s no guarantee that 2025 will be an easy year for Freiman and Drulis, either.
See all 2023 election results HERE.