New Jersey Republicans slightly closed their gap with state Democrats in June, possibly due to the GOP’s competitive primary. The trendline may be more important than the raw numbers.
Republicans added 25,439 new voters to their ranks last month. The Democrats added 19,484, so the R vs. D gap closed by 5,955 voters.
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It’s a drop in the bucket; Democrats continue to outnumber Republicans in the Garden State by a staggering total of 1,083,889 voters.
Still, the recent monthly totals are a possible sign that Republicans may have reached “the bottom” (at least for now).
The party’s registration gap ballooned from around 700,000 when Chris Christie won in 2009 to nearly a million when Phil Murphy beat Christie’s lieutenant governor in 2017. The GOP has nevertheless now posted slight gains for April and June 2021 and Democrats increased their massive lead by less than 300 registrants in May.
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