New Jersey

Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat, won a third full term, 62.4% to 34.9% over Republican Justin Murphy, in a state Kamala Harris carried by 5.9 points.¹ The change was in the House, where Democrats defeated two Republican incumbents. In the 7th District, which Donald Trump carried by 1.2 points, Rebecca Bennett beat Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. by 16.5. In the 2nd, which Trump carried by 12.4, Cape May Mayor Zack Mullock beat Rep. Jeff Van Drew by 2.7.^{1, 2, 3} Democrats kept all nine seats they held. In the 9th District, which Trump had carried by 1.1 points, Nellie Pou won by 34.9, and in the 8th no Republican appeared on the ballot against Rep. Rob Menendez.⁴

Booker’s margin was 21.6 points wider than Harris’s, and turnout made most of the difference. He drew 83 votes for every 100 she won here. Murphy drew 52 for every 100 of Trump’s. The Senate race drew 2,947,148 votes in our count, 113% of the 2022 midterm figure and 69% of the 2024 presidential vote. Democratic candidates won the U.S. House vote statewide by 28.3 points, up from 7.1 in 2024.

Every part of the state moved by double digits. New Jersey’s part of the New York area, which casts 73% of the vote, moved furthest, 22.8 points, from D+4.2 to D+27.0. The counties in the Philadelphia area, which were the most Democratic part of the state in 2024, moved 18.8 points, from D+14.2 to D+33.0. The smaller metro areas moved least, 17.5 points, to D+23.2.

The largest of the seven counties that voted for Trump in 2024 and for Booker this year is Monmouth County, in New Jersey’s part of the New York area. It went from R+11.4 to D+6.4 on 236,197 votes. Passaic County crossed the same line and went much further, from R+2.9 to D+27.9. Hudson County moved furthest of all, 31.7 points, to D+59.7. Bergen County, which cast more votes than any other county, went from D+3.4 to D+24.5. Ocean County stayed Republican, by 8.3 points where Trump had won it by 36.0.

Nothing in state government was on the statewide ballot. The Division of Elections’ page for the 2026 general election lists results for two offices, U.S. Senate and U.S. House, and the governor’s race was held the year before.^{4, 5} The governor, Mikie Sherrill, is a Democrat.⁶ Neither chamber of the Legislature was up, and in our count Democrats hold 25 of 40 seats in the state Senate and 57 of 80 in the lower chamber, as they did before.

What the election changed is the delegation New Jersey sends to the U.S. House, which will have one Republican where it had three. The 11-1 balance is the one the 2018 midterms produced, Insider NJ noted.⁴ Among the 11 Democrats are Bennett and Mullock, who defeated incumbents; Adam Hamawy, who succeeds the retiring Bonnie Watson Coleman in the 12th District and will be the first Muslim from New Jersey to serve in Congress; and Analilia Mejia in the 11th, elected to her first full term after winning a special election.^{2, 7} The new Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2027.²

The Republican vote fell much further than the Democratic vote. Turnout stood at 44.8 percent of registered voters at midday on November 11, against 55 percent in the 2018 midterms and 51 percent in the 2025 governor’s race, Colleen O’Dea reported for Insider NJ, and Republican candidates for federal office received almost 20 percent fewer votes than in 2018.⁴ “Turnout in this cycle was definitely lower than in 2018, and even seems to have been a shade lower than we saw in the governor’s race last year,” Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said in her report; he put the difference down to lower turnout among registered Republicans.⁴ By county, turnout ranged from 35 percent in Hudson to 58 percent in Hunterdon.⁴

Trenton’s mayor goes into a runoff from second place. In the election on November 3, police detective Corey McNair finished first in a field of six with 37.12% of the vote, and Mayor Reed Gusciora was second with 23.25%, in unofficial Mercer County results. The two meet on December 8, in the capital’s first mayoral runoff since 2018.⁸ On October 15 Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced her nominees for the Morris and Hunterdon county prosecutors, who begin five-year terms if the state Senate approves them.⁹

Republicans kept one of the three House seats they held. In the 4th District, which Trump carried by 29.8 points, Rep. Chris Smith won by 18.0; he was re-elected to a 24th term and will be the only Republican representing New Jersey in Congress, NJ Spotlight News reported.⁷ The seat they came closest to keeping was the 2nd, lost by 2.7 points. In the Senate race, five of the state’s 21 counties voted Republican; Trump had carried those and seven more. No county moved toward the Republicans.

Neither of New Jersey’s Senate seats will be on the ballot in 2028. The state that voted Democratic for president by 5.9 points in 2024 voted Democratic for Senate by 27.5 this year, with a Republican vote that was 52 for every 100 of Trump’s. The members elected on November 3 take their seats on January 3, 2027.²

The count was not finished on November 11. County officials were still tallying some mail-in and provisional ballots that day, Insider NJ reported, with 2.99 million votes counted and turnout unlikely to rise much above 47 percent.⁴ In Trenton, McNair and Gusciora meet in the mayoral runoff on December 8.⁸