N.J. Democrats lose their million-voter advantage

The day has finally arrived: there are no longer one million more Democrats than Republicans in the state of New Jersey.

As of the New Jersey Division of Elections’ April 1 report, the state has 2,533,035 registered Democrats and 1,534,241 Republicans – a 998,794-voter advantage for Democrats – as well as 2,383,203 unaffiliated voters and 80,826 voters registered with minor parties.

Overall, the state has 6,531,305 registered voters, an increase of 5,862 voters from last month’s report; Republicans added 4,094 new voters and Democrats added 2,522. Unusually, unaffiliated voters, who have made up the bulk of voter registration gains in recent reports, decreased by 703.

New Jersey Democrats first gained their million-voter advantage in July 2020, when the presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden supercharged voter interest and led to hundreds of thousands of new voter registrations. The party had been steadily growing throughout the Trump presidency, eventually adding 450,000 new voters between November 2016 and November 2020; Republicans added around 230,000 voters in the same time period.

Once Biden was elected president, however, the trends slowly began to reverse, and Republicans have gained ground in most recent registration reports.

The loss of their million-voter advantage will hurt Democrats symbolically, though its concrete impact may be minimal. Democrats are still well ahead – a 998,794-voter surplus is nothing to sneeze at – and they maintain an edge in most key legislative and congressional districts.

At the same time as they crossed the million-voter mark in summer 2020, registered Democrats also grew to outnumber unaffiliated voters for the first time in state history. As of this month’s report, there are still 150,000 more Democrats than unaffiliated voters, so that advantage looks like it won’t be going away anytime soon.