U.S. House Redistricting: New Jersey

[Brittain33]

Republicans have nearly as many seats as the Democrats because the voters of New Jersey chose to elect them. It simply isn't for you to decide which parties are "overrepresented," and which are not.

Indeed. The Republican candidates got more votes than  the Democratic candidates across all 13 districts in 2010.

What was the average number of votes cast in Dem-held districts compared to Republican-held districts, and what accounts for the difference?

[Brittain33]

Win some, lose some. At least for an R map it's quite fair and resolves a lot of irregularities and you can't argue with where the lost district should have come from.

[Brittain33]

12    66.3    33.7

Hard to believe that 2 redistrictings ago, this was a Republican district.

[Brittain33]

12    66.3    33.7

Hard to believe that 2 redistrictings ago, this was a Republican district.

It's only 68% of the current Holt district.  It's probably even less of the district it was in the 1990s, geographically speaking.

Sure, the result was as much due to redistricting as to demographic and electoral change, although there was some of that. If you'd said in 1994 that someday Republicans would concede the district (2001) and then make it a Democratic vote sink (2011), I would have been pleasantly shocked.

[Brittain33]

Actually, it doesn't. Just about all the state and county legislative officials are Republican. Christie got 59% in NJ-03. Republican registration advantage is at least 5 points.

You don't have to take my word for it. Roberts conceded that NJ-03 is noncompetitive.

It's simply not a winnable district for the Democrats. Unlike NJ-02, which encompasses random rural areas and lower income areas in Gloucester, NJ-03 covers many higher income areas.

Christie got 53% or 54% in NJ-6, a district everyone recognizes as a Dem vote sink, according to the Daily Kos site I just closed out before checking which of the two numbers it was. Those gubernatorial numbers are highly variable. Not that I disagree that NJ-3 became tougher than before, but given national Republican overreach, stranger things have happened. The district probably has a lot more olds than it used to.

Aren't their D legislators along the Delaware River? Again, not that legislators have a track record of unseating Congressmen in NJ.

[Brittain33]

Republicans even made Pallone's seat less Democratic.

How did they do that? They put in some heavily Dem areas of north Middlesex which, when they left Lance's district, made it even safer for him. Perhaps I thought the district was more competitive before than it was, because it looks pretty damn uncompetitive now. Didn't they add Perth Amboy, too?

[Brittain33]

Man, I hope they offered Rothman some lube first.

Rothman both has a plurality in the population in the new 'Pascrell' district, and has the district number.

It's far more accurate to say that NJ-8 was dissolved. All the white Republican towns that were surrounded by Paterson were liberated and given to Rodney.

Many of the towns in the old CD-8 weren't Republican.  Wayne, yes, but not West Orange or Bloomfield or Montclair.  There are plenty of Democrats in suburban Essex, and I don't think they'd consider it "liberating" at all to be trapped in the Morris County district.

There's a line between partisanship and creepy racism that gets crossed a little too often.