Unlike two of its neighbors, New Jersey is not currently projected to lose any of its 12 congressional seats following the 2030 Census, according to an analysis published yesterday by the nonpartisan Brennan Center.
Population estimates released earlier this week by the U.S. Census Bureau put New Jersey’s population at 9,548,215 as of July 2025, an increase of 259,191 (2.7%) over the 9,289,024 New Jerseyans recorded in the 2020 Census. Between July 1, 2024 and July 1, 2025, the state added 41,861 residents, the tenth-largest numeric growth of any state in a year when overall U.S. population growth lagged.
Assuming population trends witnessed during the first half of the decade continue in the second, the Brennan Center wrote, that should be sufficient for New Jersey to maintain all 12 of its districts (though it would not, evidently, be enough for the state to regain its 13th district.) The same is not true of other large states like California, Pennsylvania, New York, and Illinois, all of which are projected to lose at least one – and, in California’s case, four – congressional seats at the expense of faster-growing states in the South and West.
Then again, as the Brennan Center noted, there is plenty of uncertainty about what the country’s population changes will look like in the back half of the 2020s, and shifts in where the country is growing and shrinking could render the group’s current estimates inaccurate. Inter-decade Census estimates also don’t always match up with what the actual decennial Census results find.
At its peak, New Jersey had 15 congressional districts, a heyday that lasted for two decades between 1963 and 1983. After the 1980 Census, the 15th district was abolished, and the 14th district was nixed ten years later; the 13th district joined them after the 2010 Census, forcing Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) and Steve Rothman (D-Englewood) into a member-on-member primary brawl.
Since the 2010 Census, though, New Jersey has begun to rebound, especially in comparison to nearby states like Pennsylvania and New York. After the 2020 Census, New Jersey came relatively close to reclaiming its 13th district; per the Census Bureau, it was mathematically tenth in line to gain an extra seat.
Gaining and losing seats is important for the state’s congressional representation, of course, but it also affects its influence in the Electoral College, where it currently has 14 votes (after once having 17).
The Census Bureau has not yet published 2025 estimates on the county and municipal level; that data, set to be released in the spring, will be key to determining how New Jersey’s congressional and legislative districts will have to shift in order to account for population trends. Though the state may have held steady at 12 congressional seats in 2020, internal shifts – particularly population growth in Hudson County and the Orthodox Jewish hub of Lakewood – forced mapmakers to substantially reshape some districts.