Less than 20% of American states are true battlegrounds in 2024, Save Jerseyans, a state of play that has remained largely unchanged for the past two and a half decades. No candidate has won a true landslide in nearly forty years (since George H.W. Bush won 426 electoral votes and vanquished Michael Dukakis 1988). The reason is clear: we are a deeply divided nation, and decades of Americans “voting with their feet” has deepened the divide.
New Jersey isn’t any different than the nation at-large. While it hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential nominee post-1988, since 2000, only five New Jersey counties out of twenty-one have been in more than one party’s column.
Remarkably, Atlantic, Bergen, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Ocean, Passaic, Sussex, Union and Warren counties have all reliably voted either red (or blue) each year without any deviation.
Here’s the list of counties that HAVE changed hands from cycle-to-cycle:
- Salem
Rural Salem County (home to only about 65,000 of New Jersey’s over 9 million residents) is your classic Obama/Trump jurisdiction, voting for the Democrat nominee in 2000, 2008 and 2012 but then supporting Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Interestingly, 2020 is the only year since 2000 that Salem did NOT vote for the ultimate national winner making it an arguably unlikely bellwether in Deep South Jersey, and regardless of who succeeds nationally, it seems likely that the home of the legendary Cowtown Rodeo will go “red” agains in November 2024.
- Somerset
Election 2016 saw the beginning of a realignment in American politics with traditional Republican and relatively affluent/”educated” suburbs moving to the Left and rural, working class regions dashing to the Right. That year, Donald Trump made more history by becoming the only Republican to win the presidency without also winning Somerset County, New Jersey since the 19th century. It also wasn’t close, with Clinton securing 54.55% of the county vote to Trump’s 41.70%. Somerset voted for Biden in 2020, and the county’s Republican-level representation has been wiped out by the woke-ification of this New York metropolitan suburban outpost. Somerset needs to be viewed as, at the very least, a “lean” Democrat county again in 2024.
- Morris
The home county of ex-Governor Chris Christie, Morris County’s wealthy NYC suburbs have been turning blue at a steady clip in recent cycle. In 2020, Joe Biden carried Morris County, the first time that a Democrat managed that feat since Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 landslide win over Barry Goldwater. There’s some polling evidence that Trump may be improving his position in the burbs a bit this time around versus 2020, due in part to an improved polling position with married women and educated men, but Morris looks to be a battleground again this fall as opposed to the reliably red county it used to be for half of a century.
- Monmouth
Monmouth County voted for Al Gore in 2000, but it’s been in the GOP’s column ever since. Still, Trump won this county (home to his beautiful Colts Neck golf club) by a hair less than double-digits in 2016 and carried the county by only 2.8-points in 2020 amid the Covid-19 backlash among seniors who heavily populate the Jersey Shore. Monmouth’s western reaches are reliably red, but some of its LD11 communities (like Red Bank, Neptune Township and Asbury Park) are hardly ruby red. Far from it, and Monmouth also has its fair share of “limousine liberals” with R’s nominally situated at the ends of the names even though they no longer vote that way. I’d bet on Trump carrying the county in 2024, but Monmouth is not a “safe” county for Republicans in statewide contests.
- Gloucester
South Jersey’s Gloucester County is the ultimate swing county. First, it voted for Barack Obama (twice). Trump carried it by HALF of a point in 2016 despite losing decisively statewide, then Biden flipped it but won by a mere 2-points in 2020. Phil Murphy put Gloucester in his column back in2017; Jack Ciattarelli snatched it back in 2021. More diverse socio-economically than a trip down I-295 South may instantly suggest, the suburban Philadelphia outpost of Gloucester is also one of the few New Jersey counties with split county-level representation between the parties. A key territory of the formerly untouchable Norcross Machine, there’s every reason to predict that Gloucester could be (very) close again in 2024. In fact, I’d argue that it could be a key NATIONAL bellwether for presidential contest since it’s supported the national winner in the past four contests (2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020).
