What can 2024 results tell us about 2025's legislative races?
When New Jersey politicians gathered in 1947 to write the state’s new constitution, they established a system wherein state-level elections would be held in odd-numbered years, forever setting them apart from federal elections. “The importance of a gubernatorial election merits an election that will not be overshadowed by a national contest for the Presidency,” Gov. Alfred Driscoll said at the convention, laying out why he believed the two should be separated.
That unusual off-year system, which has lasted to this day and exists in only four other states, has meant that the federal and state politics of New Jersey are somewhat disconnected. The cohorts of voters that show up and the issues at stake in federal elections are very different from those in state elections; as a result, plenty of Republican legislators have been able to win in districts that are deep-blue in federal election years, and vice-versa.
But with all that being said, federal elections still often provide clues as to how voters will approach the following year’s state elections, especially in the more polarized, nationalized modern era of politics. And with Kamala Harris falling to just a six-point win in the New Jersey’s presidential election last month (down from 16 points in 2020), Democrats in particular should look to this year’s results as a warning ahead of the 2025 races for State Assembly.
Donald Trump, who surged across the country in majority-minority areas, flipped five state legislative districts that he lost in 2020, winning 15 districts overall to Harris’s 25; seven Democratic assemblymembers will be faced with the task of running for re-election in districts that Trump won, and a number of others represent districts that Harris only barely held onto.
https://newjerseyglobe.com/legislature/what-can-2024-results-tell-us-about-2025s-legislative-races/