It would take a miracle for Republicans to flip New Jersey in 2024, but the first day of early in-person voting suggested a strong surge of GOP enthusiasm which could make for a closer race than we’ve seen in 20 years.
135,075 Garden State voters cast their ballots on Saturday and it was essentially a draw: the raw total number of voters including Democrats (38.5%) and Republicans (37.4%) represented a dramatic uptick from 2022 (26,658) and 2023 (19,192), and Democrats are running well behind their 2022 pace when they had a 19-point lead on the GOP in early in-person voting.
A new poll from Cygnal released Sunday showed Donald Trump running 12-points behind Kamala Harris, a significantly tighter margin than his 2016 and 2020 performances.
Meanwhile, in the state’s only hotly-contested competitive congressional district, Republicans swamped Democrats on Day #1 by 14-points, 45%-31%. Democrats are enjoying a stronger statewide edge in vote-by-mail ballots – their returned ballot advantage stands at 240,031 – but will need a much strong showing in NJ-07 where they’re only up 20,000 ballots if they don’t dramatically close the gap on the machines between now and when polls close on Election Day.
Here’s an overview courtesy of Ryan Dubicki of the AP:
9 days to go, and 135,075 (‼️) New Jerseyans voted on the first day of in-person early voting yesterday. With nearly 600,000 mail ballots returned, over 734,000 New Jerseyans have voted in the General Election so far. pic.twitter.com/x0fjN862oU
— Ryan Dubicki (@DubickiRyan) October 27, 2024
