New Jersey is on track for its most diverse congressional delegation ever

Of the 15 people representing the state in Congress, every single one was a man, which had been true since Rep. Marge Roukema (R-Ridgewood) left the delegation in 2003. All but two of those men were white; the two exceptions, Reps. Bob Menendez (D-Union City) and Donald Payne Sr. (D-Newark), were the only two racial minorities to have ever represented the state in Congress.

Article originally appeared here, at newjerseyglobe.com.

Twenty years ago, New Jersey’s congressional delegation was the domain of white men. 

Of the 15 people representing the state in Congress, every single one was a man, which had been true since Rep. Marge Roukema (R-Ridgewood) left the delegation in 2003. All but two of those men were white; the two exceptions, Reps. Bob Menendez (D-Union City) and Donald Payne Sr. (D-Newark), were the only two racial minorities to have ever represented the state in Congress.

Since then, the state has made substantial strides in congressional diversity, adding multiple women to its (now 14-member) delegation and electing a Black man and a Hispanic man to the U.S. Senate. But this cycle stands to be a watershed moment, with new prospective members who are set to make the congressional delegation taking office in January 2025 the most diverse in the state’s history.

Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) is the favorite to be elected to the Senate, becoming the first-ever Asian American senator from the entire East Coast. In Kim’s open 3rd district House seat, Assemblyman Herb Conaway (D-Delran) will probably be elected as the first Black House member to ever represent South Jersey.

And thanks to the tragic deaths of two North Jersey congressmen, the number of women in the state’s congressional delegation is likely to double, with Newark Council President LaMonica McIver running in the 10th district and State Sen. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon) – the state’s potential first Latina congresswoman – running in the 9th. Sue Altman, running in the toss-up 7th district against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), could increase women’s representation even further in a state that has never before elected more than two women at once.

That’s all based on victories for Democrats, but if Republicans pull off upset wins, they too could increase the state’s congressional diversity with candidates like openly gay Senate nominee Curtis Bashaw, 3rd district nominee Rajesh Mohan, and 5th district nominee Mary Guinchard. In short, no matter what happens in November, New Jersey will have a lot of firsts.

When asked about the prospect of a more diverse delegation, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) – the first woman of color to represent the state in Congress – did a little dance and said it was a long time coming.

“It’s probably the most diverse state in the nation, and we’re finally coming around,” Watson Coleman said. “I think change is in the air.”

A brief history of representation in New Jersey

From the day New Jersey began sending representatives to Congress in 1789, nearly 500 people have represented the state in Washington, some for decades and others just for a few months. Of those hundreds, precisely 15 have been something other than a white man.

The first person to break the mold was Rep. Mary Norton (D-Jersey City), who was elected in 1924 to represent Jersey City and Bayonne. Norton’s election wasn’t just a first for New Jersey; she was the first Democratic woman elected to Congress anywhere in the country. She ultimately served for 26 years and chaired the House Administration Committee in her final term.

Following in Norton’s footsteps were Rep. Florence Dwyer (R-Elizabeth), elected in 1956; Reps. Millicent Fenwick (R-Bernardsville) and Helen Meyner (D-Phillipsburg), both elected in 1974; and Rep. Marge Roukema (R-Ridgewood), elected in 1980. (Fenwick ran for the U.S. Senate in 1982 but lost to Democrat Frank Lautenberg, and New Jersey to this day has yet to elect a woman to the Senate.)

But after Roukema retired in 2002 rather than face a third consecutive primary challenge from Scott Garrett, New Jersey’s female representation hit a dry spell. From 2003 to 2015, the state didn’t have a single woman representing it in Congress.

People of color, though, were beginning to make their own strides in representation. In 1988, Donald Payne Sr. was elected as New Jersey’s first Black congressman after legendary Rep. Peter Rodino (D-Newark) retired from his majority-Black Newark district; four years later, in 1992, congressional redistricting created a new majority-Hispanic district in Hudson County that sent Bob Menendez to Congress.

Those two victories were huge for the state’s communities of color, who at last had representatives they could claim explicitly as their own.

“I never imagined that I would see, in my lifetime – I came through the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow, all of that – I couldn’t imagine that I would see people of color at the federal level in New Jersey,” said Jeannine LaRue, a longtime activist and lobbyist who got her start in state politics back in the 1980s.

For a while, nonwhite representation was limited to those two seats that had been specifically designed for it. But in 2006, Menendez was appointed to the U.S. Senate, and in 2013, he was joined by Black Newark Mayor Cory Booker, making New Jersey the first state to have an African American senator and a Hispanic senator serving at the same time. (Menendez was succeeded in the House by Albio Sires; Payne, meanwhile, died in 2012 and was replaced by his son, Donald Payne Jr.)

In 2014, Bonnie Watson Coleman finally broke the state’s all-male streak, winning a race to succeed retiring Rep. Rush Holt (D-Hopewell) in Central Jersey’s 12th district. Watson Coleman was the first Black woman to represent the state, and the first nonwhite representative to hail from outside of Newark or northern Hudson County, historically the two most powerful minority communities in New Jersey.

2018 brought further increases in diversity, with Andy Kim becoming the first Asian American congressman in state history and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) doubling the number of women in the delegation. And in 2022, Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) – the son of the senator – became the latest in a series of Hispanic congressmen to represent Hudson County after Sires retired.

The result of all of that is a delegation that, as it stands right now, is already more diverse than any prior delegation in state history. But the delegation elected this November is near-certain to go even further.

The 2024 earthquake

2024 will, for a lot of reasons, be remembered as a seminal year in New Jersey politics. It was the year that Bob Menendez, one of the most powerful men in the state, got convicted on corruption charges, and it was the year that the county line, the ballot design system that lets political parties shape primary ballots in their favor, met its (still-ongoing) demise.

It was also, coincidentally, the year that two congressmen sadly passed away. Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark) died in April at the age of 65 after suffering a heart attack, while 87-year-old Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) died last month following a month-long hospitalization.

Combined, all of those factors set the stage for quite a bit of turnover in New Jersey’s congressional delegation before voters had even gone to the polls. And since the chaos primarily affected solidly Democratic seats, most of the action has been on the Democratic side of the aisle.

Democratic voters ultimately nominated Kim for the Menendez’s Senate seat, Conaway for Kim’s seat, and McIver for Payne’s seat; Pou, meanwhile, was chosen at an internal meeting of party leaders in the 9th district to fill Pascrell’s spot on the general election ballot. And in each case, a bevy of other diverse candidates who could have forged their own historical firsts failed to make the cut.

“In one year, two people died in office and a third person was indicted, convicted, and had to step down,” LaRue said. “That all three of those seats would be filled by people of color, and two of them would be women – it’s amazing to me.”

(There’s also George Helmy, who is currently serving as an interim senator following Menendez’s resignation; Helmy, the son of Egyptian immigrants, is the first Arab American to represent New Jersey in Congress, and the first senator to be a member of the Coptic Church.)

If every Democrat who is favored to win does in fact prevail in November (or next week, when McIver will be up for a special election), white men will become a minority in New Jersey’s full congressional delegation for the first time ever. And if Sue Altman wins her competitive race as well, then there would be five women serving at once – more than twice as many as have ever served simultaneously before.

The overturning of the county line serves as something of an interesting footnote to the whole affair, since it didn’t have any direct impact on any primary outcome; Kim, Conaway, McIver, and Altman all had party support but still won on line-free ballots, while Pou didn’t have an actual primary to run in at all.

It’s possible, though, that the increased focus this year on New Jersey’s political systems – and the white male-dominated state government they’ve produced – made party leaders more intent on putting forward a diverse congressional slate. That was especially true in the backroom process to choose Pascrell’s replacement, in which Pou’s identity as a Hispanic woman was a major selling point for her candidacy.

Proponents of abolishing the county line say that, going forward, a line-free New Jersey will provide even more opportunities for women and people of color to seize political power in the state.

“Now that we don’t have a line anymore in primaries, I think now that process may look a little different next year,” LaRue said. “We’re not totally there yet, but I think the playing field is level to a point where there’s hope that there will be diversity serving at all levels of government.”

What about Republicans?

On the face of it, Republicans have nearly as diverse of a slate of candidates this year as Democrats do. Out of the 13 House and Senate seats up this year, Democrats have nominated someone other than a straight white man in eight of them, while Republicans have done so in seven.

The GOP ticket includes Curtis Bashaw for the Senate (who would be the first openly gay male senator anywhere in the country), Teddy Liddell in the 1st district, Rajesh Mohan in the 3rd district, Mary Guinchard in the 5th district, Anthony Valdes in the 8th district, Billy Prempeh in the 9th district, and Darius Mayfield in the 12th district – one of the party’s most diverse slates in history.

“What Republican voters have seen in the last couple of years is that some of our best candidates come from the community, and come from the outside rather than the inside,” said Alex Wilkes, a top GOP strategist. “And as people are more drawn to that outsider experience, that is going to produce a class of candidates that is more reflective of the community.”

The problem for Republicans, though, is that none of their diverse candidates are especially likely to win. Three white male congressmen – Reps. Kean, Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), and Chris Smith (R-Manchester) – are the only three Republicans who have a strong shot at winning this year; all other candidates are substantial underdogs at best, thanks in no small part to a Democratic-drawn congressional map that makes it very difficult for Republicans to flip any seats outside of the three they already control.

That’s the continuation of a long-running theme for state Republicans. New Jersey has never once elected a Black, Hispanic, or Asian American Republican to Congress, and there hasn’t been a Republican congresswoman in the state since Marge Roukema retired over two decades ago. That’s not because Republicans haven’t nominated any women or nonwhite candidates; it’s because they’ve typically only nominated them in uphill races, while mostly putting forward white men in more winnable seats.

Wilkes said that, unlike Democrats, Republicans and their primary voters aren’t all that interested in ticking demographic boxes, and don’t see diversity as an end goal in itself.

“We should aim to have the best person for the job, regardless of what that person looks like or where they come from,” Wilkes said. “Seeking outsiders, seeking a different candidate profile than we would traditionally in the past, has naturally produced more diversity – diversity is a great byproduct of that. But it is not diversity for diversity’s sake, whereas the Democrats seem to have boxes to check at every juncture.”

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