New Jersey has voted Democratic for president in every election since 1992, and 2024 held that streak — Kamala Harris carried it by 5.9 points. The number is the story. Four years earlier the state went Democratic by 16.0 points; the margin fell 10.1 points in a single cycle, the second-largest move of any state behind only New York. The drop was not even across the map. It ran deepest through the cities that had given the party its widest margins, and ran shallow, or reversed, in the wealthier suburbs that had been moving the other way for a decade. The most settled state split along the same seam.
The clearest case is Passaic County, around the city of Paterson, where 44 percent of residents are Hispanic and 37 percent speak Spanish at home. It went Democratic by 16.7 points in 2020 and Republican by 2.9 in 2024 — a 19.6-point reversal that flipped it for the first time in a generation. Hudson County, lining the river across from Manhattan and the densest county in the state at about 15,500 people per square mile, stayed Democratic but slid from 46.6 points to 28.1, an 18.5-point move. Essex County, holding Newark, remained the bluest at 44.9 points; Ocean County, the reddest, ran 36.0 points Republican.
The wealthier suburbs moved less. Bergen County held Democratic at 3.4 points and Somerset at 13.9, both well ahead of the statewide slide, even as the cities narrowed. Underneath is a state of 9.3 million on roughly 7,350 square miles — about 1,270 people per square mile, the highest of any state. It is also among the most affluent and educated: third of the fifty states in median household income at $103,556, against a U.S. median of $80,734, and fifth in the share of adults holding a bachelor’s degree, at 43.5 percent. In 2026 Sen. Cory Booker seeks a third full term against Republican Justin Murphy.
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