Battleground by Justin Brown - ...is New Jersey a swing state now?!?

Takeaways

• Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump in New Jersey by barely 6 points. This is the closest a Republican presidential candidate has come to winning New Jersey since 1992.
• The state's rightward swing is primarily due to historically low turnout, particularly amongst the state's Democratic base. Overall voter turnout dropped from 70.4% participation in 2020 to only 63.9% in 2024.
• Democrats lost the most votes in counties encircling New York City that have supported the party for decades.

Trump flips five New Jersey counties

Donald Trump performed significantly better in New Jersey when compared to his past performances, receiving 46% of the total vote compared to 41% in both of his previous campaigns. This newfound success is largely due to changes in voter turnout. Every county saw a drop in overall voter turnout when comparing to 2020's voter participation rates with most seeing a drop of 5% or more. Despite less voters casting ballots, Trump saw an increase of about 85,000 votes or a 4.5% increase from his 2020 vote total.

This change in voter behavior led to five counties flipping toward Republicans: Atlantic, Cumberland, Gloucester, Morris and Passaic. Trump gaining ground marks the first time since 1992 that a Republican presidential candidate won a majority of New Jersey's counties.

Democrats Lost Nearly 400,000 Votes

Donald Trump's strong performance was almost entirely due to Democrats' inability to turnout their own voters. When looking at differences in vote totals by party compared to the 2020 election, Donald Trump didn't gain a substantial amount of votes. Instead, Democrats lost a whopping 387,000 votes in this election when comparing to 2020, with much of those losses being concentrated in the state's most urbanized and left-leaning counties. This is especially alarming when noting that the state's number of registered voters has increased over the past four years from 6.4 million in 2020 to 6.6 million in 2024. Only 64% of New Jersey voters turned out to vote: the lowest turnout rate the state has ever seen in a presidential election.

While Trump saw substantial gains in votes in three counties, Democrats saw even more substantial losses across 14 counties.

Down Ballot Races

Senate: After New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez (D) was indicted on federal corruption charges, Democrats nominated Rep. Andy Kim to run for Menendez's Senate seat. He managed to beat his Republican challenger, Curtis Bashaw, by a larger margin (~10 points) than Harris' win against Trump. While Kim was able to win two counties that Harris did not (Gloucester and Passaic) he still received less overall votes than Harris.

House: The state's representation in the US House remained a 9-3 split in favor of Democrats, however every one of New Jersey's House Democrats saw tighter races than in 2022. Sen. Bob Menendez's indictment created unique issues for his son's US House race in New Jersey's 8th congressional district. Rep. Rob Menendez, son Sen. Bob Menendez, was first elected to the US House in 2022 and won by receiving 73% of the total district vote. His support dropped significantly in the wake of his father's corruption charges, resulting in Rep. Menendez winning only 59% of the total district vote in 2024.