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In an unexpectedly relatively Close race, longtime incumbent Bill Pascrell was held to the closest margin of his career since he first won his - at the time Patterson & Essex based - Seat by 3.2% in 1996. Winning this Biden+19% seat by 11.4% in 2022.
In this otherwise sleepy race there were two main culprits and a third lesser culprit contributing to the relatively close margin.
The First one is incredibly lackluster Hispanic turnout throughout the district, such as can be seen in Fairview Bergen County which had 43.8% of 2020 Turnout, Passaic City (the most Hispanic town in the district) which had 35% of 2020 Turnout, and the core of the district in Patterson which had 37.9% of 2020 turnout.
The second Part was a decently sized swing to the Republican from Trump's numbers in predominantly working class South Bergen towns such as in Lodi, Carlstadt, and North Arlington. The numbers in such mumicipalities point to a ~5-10% swing in the Working class in South Bergen
Combined those two factors make the lions share of the reason that the district swung to the right, however, one other reason that the district swung to the right is some suburban lag in the Northwest of the district from towns such as Oakland, Franklin Lakes, North Haledon and Rochelle Park.
Note the Gubernatorial weing map makes the divide clear, with towns with sizable hispanic & communities swinging to the right or not swinging to the left by much when compared to Murphy's 2021 Numbers.
Those that swung by more to the left compared to Murphy 2021 tended to overall be the higher educational attainment, less Working Class, more suburban towns that still swung to the right because of the redened National environment.
Lastly, I'll note that in order to actually Flip this district, Republicans would need to attain better than their uxisting down ballot numbers in the Bergen Party Section, making the norhern part of the South WWC Area (the Lodi-Ridgefield strip) much redder than it is currently.
This is in addition to getting numbers better than Ciattarelli 2021 in the - slightly left Trending - southern Tip of Bergen County, and not have the Few true Suburban areas in the disterict trend away from them - in addition to having overall Hispanic turnout in the district down.
As such, the GOP in order to flip this district the GOP needs to find a way to execute the map above (Barring the GOP making major inroads with the Hispanic population in the district to significantly offset that disadvantage) flipping this Biden +19 seat will be difficult.
Lastly, I'll note that this is taking results at the Municipal level and using ecological inferences to infer what happened in the agregate by comparing multiple diferent municipalities and their primary groups. However, there are multiple groups in the municipalities and in addition to the Assumptions being assumptions, discrepencies in the municipal results and the analysis could be seen due to internal shifts not seen at the agregate level, or due ecological inference fallacies, or due to a combination of the factors above overiding another factor that is seen to predominate in the Municipality.
At the Agregate however, the three factors identified are likely correct.
At the Agregate however, the three factors identified are likely correct.
Swing between 2020 Presidential and 2022 Congressional
Swing between 2021 Gubernatorial and 2022 Congressional
2021 Gubernatorial Election
2020 Presidential Election
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