Assembly Democrats in New Jersey had reasons to be concerned this year. The Republican ticket was led by an experienced politician in Jack Ciattarelli, and anxiety over historical trends and polling accuracy led to a wary optimism entering Election Day.
The results of 2021 and 2024 posed a warning to legislative Democrats: Murphy had won a slim majority of 22 legislative districts in his re-election bid, while Kamala Harris secured 25 districts last year. Some Democrats feared a combination of Trump’s 2024 and Ciattarelli’s 2021 coalitions could sweep the latter to victory this year, and imperil many Democratic Assembly seats in doing so. (The State Senate wasn’t up this year, save for one special election in a blue seat.)
The anti-Trump wave, though, turned into a rip current, pulling districts thought to be solidly Republican into Democratic hands. Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic victor, flipped six legislative districts that Ciattarelli had won in 2021 (LDs 2, 4, 8, 11, 21, and 25), and came within 3% of flipping four more (LDs 3, 26, 39, and 40). Sherrill won 28 legislative districts — and came within a few points of carrying as many as 32, stretching the limits of the map.
In a year when everything had to go right for the GOP to have a shot at victory, nothing went right. South Jersey was central for Ciattarelli’s near-upset in 2021, but it was home to some of the biggest swings leftward last month. After winning the 1st legislative district by about 19 points in 2021, he won it by just 6 this year. He won the 2nd legislative district by about 7% in 2021, but he lost it by nearly 9% this year.
“I’m struck by what looks like a blue South Jersey again, for the first time in several years,” Rasmussen said. “That jumps out at me most strongly, maybe.”
Seven Democrats this year were tasked with defending Assembly seats in Trump-won districts, several of whom were thought to be in serious danger this year. All seven survived and will return to Trenton. One of those Democrats, Assemblyman Avi Schnall (D-Lakewood), won re-election in the ruby red 30th with the support of Orthodox Jewish leadership.
The other six — from the 3rd, 36th, and 38th legislative districts — played defense in tightly contested districts. Incumbents in the 36th and 38th districts ended up having little to worry about — Sherrill won both of their districts handily, returning them to their Democratic roots — but in the 3rd, Assemblymembers Dave Bailey (D-Woodstown) and Heather Simmons (D-Glassboro) were thought to be in serious trouble. Though Sherrill lost the 3rd by a little less than a point, Bailey and Simmons were able to scrounge enough ticket-splitters to win another term.
Meanwhile, five GOP Assembly incumbents ran for re-election in districts carried by Kamala Harris in 2024. Four of those five lost, the sole survivor being Assemblyman Don Guardian (R-Atlantic City) in the 2nd legislative district. Assemblymembers Claire Swift (R-Margate) of the 2nd, Michael Torrissi (R-Hammonton) of the 8th, and Michele Matsikoudis (R-New Providence) and Nancy Muñoz (R-Summit) of the 21st lost their seats.
The final Democratic flip came in the 25th legislative district, a Trump-won seat in Morris County that handily supported Sherrill (it overlaps with her old congressional district) and dumped Assemblyman Christian Barranco (R-Jefferson) to the curb.
The 23rd legislative district, Assembly Minority Leader John DiMaio (R-Hackettstown)’s seat in northwestern Jersey, voted for Ciattarelli in 2021 by almost 21 points. Sherrill swung the district 16 points toward her direction, losing it by about 4 and a half percentage points.
The swings were less pronounced in northeastern areas of the state, like Bergen County, but they were still visible. Ciattarelli won the 39th district by about 7 points in 2021, a victory that dipped to just a point this year.
Assemblyman Mike Inganamort (R-Chester Twp) said Republicans “misread the wind” this year. He believes that Ciattarelli could have won in a neutral year, but pointed to results in Virginia and Tennessee to show that Democrats have held a baked-in advantage this year.
“Jack ran a damn good campaign, and I truly believe in a neutral environment, he would have won this thing, but the winds were blowing in another direction,” he said.
What comes next?
Rasmussen said Republicans should count themselves lucky that the state Senate was not up for election this year.
“They almost certainly would have seen losses in the Senate if the Senate had been up this year,” Rasmussen said.
Four Republican state senators — Vince Polistina (R-Egg Harbor Twp), Latham Tiver (R-Southampton), Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), and Minority Leader Anthony M. Bucco (R-Boonton Twp) — will face re-election in Sherrill-won districts, should they all decide to run again in two years. State Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Long Branch), the campaign chair of Sherrill’s run, said Democrats will be playing “heavy offense” in 2027, and specifically named those senators as candidates who will have to buckle down to defend their seats.
Bramnick, who ran an ill-fated, moderate campaign for governor earlier this year, said the GOP needs to work harder to reach unaffiliated voters. He hails from the 21st legislative district, which voted for Sherrill by more than 11 points and elected two Democrats over his incumbent Republican districtmates, Matsikoudis and Muñoz.
Bramnick, a longtime Trump critic, has relied on his moderate status to regularly win re-election in a district that only barely voted for Jack Ciattarelli in 2021, and he wants to bring that lesson statewide. He took that message to the GOP gubernatorial primary this year, where MAGA voters summarily rejected him in favor of the more conservative Ciattarelli and radio host Bill Spadea.
“Many [Republican] ‘insiders’ and ‘bloggers’ continue to write how to ‘fix’ the Republican party after November. We will win statewide when voters feel our candidates show both humanity and empathy while fighting for our historic principles. Ending hateful rhetoric is a good start,” Bramnick prognosticated in a social media post.
Gopal similarly argued the GOP’s fate in 2027 will depend much on whether they align themselves with Trump.
“It depends on what the Republicans do,” he said. “If they continue to go MAGA and not offer solutions and try to divide people, they’re going to keep losing.”
Heading into 2025, Republicans counted on maintaining gains in South Jersey, with Hispanic voters, and in urban areas. Each of those coalitions collapsed, leaving Republicans few spots on the map to feel optimistic about.
“We are fighting from a minority position here, and that’s going to require some coalition building to get back to a winning majority,” Inganamort said. “So I don’t think we should overthink this. We’ve got to show up.”
Rasmussen said it’s too early to predict what could happen in 2027. In 2023, when an unpopular Joe Biden theoretically put New Jersey Republicans in a strong position to build on Ciattarelli’s strong 2021 result, they instead lost six Assembly seats and made no net gains in the Senate.
“[Republicans] had a promising cycle in 2021, and they had a much less promising cycle in 2023,” Rasmussen said.
Gopal agreed that 2023 was disappointing for Republicans, but he attributed Democratic success that year to strong organizing among Democrats in off-year races, which he said will continue.
“By all historical uptakes, [2023] should have been a Republican year, and the Democrats had one of their best years ever, because, I think, of how much of a far better job the party has done in organizing,” Gopal said.
There’s no clear route for Republicans to take. They will elect a new state chair early next month, but unlike 2023 and 2025, when they had Ciattarelli to look forward to, there is no presumptive leader to build momentum behind.
“They do have to build from scratch,” Rasmussen said. “They need to do a lot of brand new candidate recruitment, and the problem with that is it’s a poor time for them to be doing candidate recruitment, because potential candidates look at their party’s fortunes. They try to read into their party’s future fortunes, and it’s not a good time for that.”
Success isn’t forever, though, and neither is failure.
“We have a daunting challenge ahead of us, but I’m in it for the long haul, and there’s going to be a comeback,” Inganamort said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but there are enough committed folks in this state, in this party, that I think we’re going to get there.”
Joey Fox contributed cartography and graphics.
