We're taking a look at the impact of Republican gerrymanders on the 2016 congressional elections. Read why in our introductory post, and click here for the full series.
New Jersey uses a bipartisan redistricting commission instead of letting the legislature draw the lines. When the parties usually don’t compromise, an appointed tiebreaker picks one party’s plan, which happened to be the Republican map in 2011. That modest Republican gerrymander aimed to protect three of their districts by combining Democratic-leaning inner suburbs with more distant Republican-leaning territory. This map worked flawlessly to elect six Republicans and six Democrats in 2012 and 2014, while Democrats only narrowly flipped the 5th District in 2016 after national Republicans abandoned Rep. Scott Garrett in part over his homophobia.
As shown above, our nonpartisan proposal reconfigures the state to better reflect communities of interest such as geographically compact suburbs and the Jersey Shore (see here for a larger version). The 3rd District supported Donald Trump by 51-45 under the existing map thanks to combining South Jersey’s Democratic-leaning Philadelphia suburbs with the staunchly Republican Shore, but our version of the 3rd favored Hillary Clinton by a hefty 61-35. That dramatic reversal in the presidential margin likely would have been far too much for Republican Rep. MacArthur to overcome.
In North Jersey, our proposal essentially combines the existing 5th and 7th into one 5th District spanning the North Jersey’s border with Pennsylvania, and it creates a new 7th District located wholly within the Newark suburbs. The redrawn 5th voted for Trump by 55-41 and likely would have been safe for either of Republican Reps. Scott Garrett or Leonard Lance. In exchange, the new suburban 7th District supported Clinton by a decisive 60-37 and likely would have been secure for whichever Democrat won the primary. Democratic Rep.-elect Josh Gottheimer had ousted Garrett in the actual 5th, but given how Republican that new district would have been, he might have just run in the 7th District instead.
On the other hand, the 6th District located along the northern Jersey Shore becomes substantially more Republican. The existing district backed Clinton 56-41, but our nonpartisan version voted for Trump by 50-47 after having favored Obama by 51-48 in 2012. However, Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone is an entrenched 14-term incumbent who ran far ahead of Clinton’s performance with a 64-35 victory in his actual district. While Republicans presumably would have given Pallone a much stiffer challenge in this more competitive seat, his incumbency advantage probably would have allowed him to prevail, even if the margin likely would have been much closer.
In total, Democrats might have gained one more congressional seat without gerrymandering in New Jersey, while one Republican-leaning district that they did narrowly win would have been replaced with a solidly Democratic district.
