Republicans need to win this relatively affluent suburban “Central Jersey” (if you believe in such a place?) district to flip the State Assembly in November. The good news for the GOP is that an LD16 upset looking more likely than it was around Labor Day…
LD16
Biden +21
Murphy +5
Senate: Lean DEM > No Change
Assembly: Lean DEM > Swing
Similar to LD14 (we’ll recap that shortly), LD16 features an OPEN Assembly seat this cycle which makes the climb for Assembly Republicans hunting for gains a little bit easier than it is for the Senate side’s operatives.
Could former-Congressman Mike Pappas pull off a big upset and unseat Senator Andrew Zwicker? Sure. That seat is very much in the competitive range at “Lean Democrat” (where it was several weeks ago). But as we’ve seen in other districts all across the state, State Senators are generally more resilient and that’s probably for a few reasons including superior name recongition and premiere ballot position.
I’m also told the LD16 campaign’s ground game is outperforming most GOP campaigns throughout the state on the metrics, and the GOP is making some real headway here despite Democrat efforts to weaponize abortion. GOTV isn’t everything, but a strong one is sometimes worth that extra point or two in a tight race which, again, I believe we now have here.
As ever, the other side’s movements are among the best indicators of competitiveness and the Democrats are clearly worried here, having begun to commit significant resources to shoring up their seats.
I’ll not longer be surprised if Ross Traphagen and/or Grace Zhang win next month and neither should you.
