Doing the Math in District 22

Being hyperlocal and all, Plaintalker normally sticks to municipal election coverage, but a quote on District 22 has aroused our curiosity.

Fellow blogger Dr. Harold Yood noted Assemblyman Jerry Green's quote that District 22 has "47,000 registered Democrats compared to 15,200 Republicans," this in rebuffing Assemblyman Jon Bramnick's estimation that Republican political newcomer John Campbell Jr. has a chance of winning an Assembly seat
this year.

The quote came from an April 17 Politicker NJ article which did not verify the actual distribution of registered voters in the district, so Plaintalker decided to look into it. After poking around for a while, Plaintalker turned up the District 22 results from 2011, posted in the state Division of Elections. The total number of registered voters in the district then was 116,646. Could the number have declined to 62,200 or so since the last Assembly race? What about unaffiliated voters?

Click here to see the entire chart. First of all, it shows that barely a quarter of those registered actually voted. In addition, Republican Joan Van Pelt garnered 10,846 votes to Green's 14,057, rather a respectable showing for what Green tries to portray as a feeble GOP minority in the district. Further, Assemblywoman Linda Stender, the theoretical target of the young GOP contender, did better than Green at the polls, a trend Plaintalker has seen in the past as well. So between the two Democrats, Green may be at more of a risk of being beaten by a GOP candidate than Stender.

This chart shows that portions of the district favored GOP candidates. With Gov. Chris Christie at the top of the ticket, GOP turnout could be greater in 2013 than it was in 2011. And then there were those Democrats who voted for Christie the last time and may be voting across party lines in other races, as is their choice in a November general election.

In 2011, 2,808 of registered voters out of a possible 20,736 in Plainfield voted for Green, contrasted to  3,913 for Stender. Van Pelt outpolled Green in the Middlesex and Somerset portions of the district and in two of the seven municipalities in Union County. Of course, Green and Stender won after all, so maybe the Dems have no worries. But Green needs to keep an eye on the numbers, and better yet, get a grip on them. This may be a year where political math really counts.

--Bernice