New Jersey's 11th Congressional District
New Jersey's 11th Congressional District, my home territory, is a bit of a mixed bag, sprawling from just west of Paterson way out to rural Sussex County. However, the core of the district is formed by exurban Morris County. This district has been Republican-held since 1985, and has a Cook PVI of R+6, but can Democrats steal it out from under the Republicans? Read below the fold to find out.
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, serving since 1995
It is best here to start with the incumbent, Rodney Frelinghuysen. The Frelinghuysen name is a legend here. His family name is on a town (Frelinghuysen, NJ, obviously) and his great-great-great uncle, Theodore Frelinghuysen, was the Whig veep candidate in 1844. He has an extremely moderate profile and all of his re-elections have been comfortable, not receiving less than 60% of the vote until last year, when he received 59% of the vote. Last year also marked the first time his Democratic opponent (in this case John Arvanites, former Mayor of Roseland) received more than 40% of the vote - an even 40%. The last election also marked the highest raw vote total against Frelinghuysen, beating the previous record from 2008 by nearly 14,000 votes.
Is this a sign of things to come? Possibly. Part of the Republican gerrymander slipped through the independent redistricting commission involved lopping off conservative southwestern Morris County and reaching into more Democratic areas of Passaic, Essex, and Union Counties. This in itself could explain our best performance against Frelinghuysen ever. What that doesn't explain however, was how close the President came to winning this supposedly-ruby-red district, receiving 47% of the vote to Mitt Romney's 52%. The Obama-McCain result (under the new district lines) was the same.
The disparity is seen throughout many moderate suburban districts across the country, but especially in the Northeast, in districts such as PA-07, PA-08, and NY-02. In many of these districts, Obama came very close to winning or did win the district while Republicans downballot were re-elected comfortably. These districts have been successfully or near-successfully swung by the national Democrats, but remain swayed by their own "moderate" Republicans. The only way to win downballot here is to convince voters there that it is the Democrats who are most closely aligned with their interest, which would likely require a wave (the kind of wave that swept PA-07 and -08 into our column in 2006).
But in the end, here in NJ-11, the incumbent may just be too popular. The Republican stranglehold downballot may be too strong to break. For example, since the Civil War only ONE Democrat has been elected a County Freeholder. Can it be done? Maybe. But here, it may be wise to just sit it out until Frelinghuysen retires. And if we take this district, there will be the added benefit of Gov. Chris Christie's Mendham home being under Democratic representation, which would be oh-so sweet.