New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District: A Coalitions Case Study

In geography, politics, and culture, NJ-03 is a district divided. The district’s population splits 57%/43%, respectively, between New Jersey’s Burlington and Ocean Counties. As it straddles the border between the Philadelphia and New York metropolitan areas, its residents agree neither on sports fandom nor on what to call a sandwich on a long, Italian roll. The district bestrides two of the country’s most expensive media markets, challenging candidates to raise significant sums.

NJ-03’s politics are no less polarized. After Barack Obama twice carried the district by 3.4% and 3.6% margins, Donald Trump won it by 6.2%. While Burlington County leans blue, Ocean County’s dark red hue tilts the R+2 district toward the GOP. Burlington County sits squarely within South Jersey Democratic boss George Norcross’ turf, but George Gilmore’s Ocean County Republican Party, Central Jersey’s strongest political machine, dominates politics along the shore.

In 1966, the New Jersey Legislature first drew a congressional district centered on Burlington and Ocean Counties. Leading up to 2018, Republicans represented the 3rd district and its predecessors in Congress for all but one term. State Sen. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill) carried the district on Barack Obama’s 2008 coattails, but former Philadelphia Eagles star Jon Runyan (R-Mount Laurel) swept him out in 2010. In New Jersey’s 2011 redistricting plan, Republican cartographers shifted Adler’s bright blue Camden County hometown into the neighboring 1st district, a move that shored up Runyan’s reelection chances.

Runyan’s surprise 2014 retirement ushered in Ocean County’s first resident member of Congress in at least half a century, and potentially ever—err, sort of. Tom MacArthur (R), a wealthy Morris County insurance executive and former Randolph mayor, carpetbagged to his Toms River shore house and launched a bid for Congress. MacArthur promised significant financing to Ocean County GOP boss George Gilmore and stressed his viability as a self-funder in the expensive district. Accordingly, MacArthur won the crucial Ocean County GOP line in the 2014 primary. After defeating another former North Jersey mayor, gadfly Steve Lonegan (R-Bergen County), for the Republican nomination, MacArthur stomped Burlington County Freeholder Aimee Belgard (D-Edgewater Park) by nearly 10%. MacArthur won a second term against token Democratic opposition by 20%, significantly outperforming Trump in the district. Just two years after the 3rd district swung modestly towards Trump, however, Andy Kim (D-Bordentown) unseated MacArthur by 1.29%. Kim’s narrow win came a year after MacArthur was the sole Garden State member of Congress to back the president’s signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act; the law’s provision capping SALT deductions was particularly toxic in high-tax New Jersey.

In the past two decades, the 3rd district has supported both Democrats and Republicans at all levels of government. At points, it has trended both leftward and rightward. The district is far from monolithic; its communities range from blue- to white-collar, downscale to upscale, and small-town to suburban. As the home of a broad range of suburbs and exurbs with varying cultures and political attitudes, NJ-03 since 2012 has provided an ideal study of modern suburban electoral coalition shifts. To facilitate my analysis, I have defined six sociocultural regions within the district. In the rest of this article, I analyze each region’s changing politics using the 2012/2016 presidential and 2014/2018 congressional elections.

Regional Analyses

The Six Sociocultural Regions of NJ-03





Region 1: Upscale Philadelphia Suburbia (Marlton, Medford, Moorestown, Mount Laurel)

Region 1 is home to the district’s affluent, educated Philadelphia suburban communities. Depending on the town, 10-15% of workers commute to Philadelphia for their primary job—a relatively small share compared to demographically similar Southeastern Pennsylvania suburbs that enjoy strong regional rail service. Region 1 residents generally work in the corporate parks in Mount Laurel and Cherry Hill as opposed to commuting to Philadelphia. Virtua Health Systems, TD Bank (headquartered in Cherry Hill), and Lockheed Martin are Burlington County’s three largest employers.

Region 1 fits the Romney/Clinton suburb archetype despite Barack Obama’s narrow victory in the region in 2012. Although Donald Trump managed to narrowly carry Medford, each of the region’s high turnout municipalities swung hard towards Hillary Clinton in 2016. Moorestown, the district’s wealthiest town, trended most strongly to the left. Tom MacArthur’s performance collapsed much more in Region 1 than elsewhere in the district; his 13.63% decline in vote share here from 2014 significantly contributed to his defeat. Even if it’s the only of the district’s regions to trend towards the Democrats between 2012 and 2016, the GOP would be wise to attempt to stanch the bleeding in Region 1—the floor could be much lower than MacArthur experienced in 2018.

Region 2: Delaware River Towns (Bordentown, Burlington, Cinnaminson, Delran)

Region 2’s towns line the storied Delaware River. Along with rail connections to North Jersey, the river facilitated the presence of heavy industry in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. That industrial history gives some towns historic cores, but suburban growth here commenced in the 1930s upon the opening of the Tacony-Palmyra and Burlington-Bristol Bridges. Residential development then exploded in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

Today, the river towns are Philadelphia suburbs and exurbs. Burlington (the retailer formerly Burlington Coat Factory) is headquartered in Burlington Township. While heavy industry has long since disappeared, light industrial facilities now operate in some of these suburbs. This decade, after the New Jersey DOT widened the Turnpike between Exits 6 and 9 to relieve a famed traffic bottleneck around Hightstown, industrial developers have built large distribution centers along Exits 5 and 6. Amazon notably opened a 500-employee, one-million square foot fulfillment center on the outskirts of Florence, once a steel town, in 2018.

Paradoxically, as the region underwent suburban development in the postwar era, the Pennsylvania Railroad shuttered passenger rail service along the former Camden & Amboy Railroad in 1963. In 2018, New Jersey Transit opened light rail service between Camden and Trenton along two former C&A lines; the River Line spurred minor river town redevelopment closer to Philadelphia.

Region 2 shares many characteristics with lower Bucks County, its neighbor just across the Delaware, although its residents are not quite as uniformly blue collar as those of lower Bucks. Bordentown today is a popular Trenton suburb for New Jersey state employees. Historic homes, especially a collection of Victorian and Italianate houses in Riverton and other local nineteenth-century towns, draw liberal-minded professionals and state employees seeking affordability and historicity. While most of Region 2’s precincts swung towards Donald Trump, the GOP consistently loses here due in part to the region’s sizable minority population. Yet, in a sign of some Republican growth, Tom MacArthur managed to perform at Mitt Romney levels here in 2018.

Region 3: Military Base Towns (Mount Holly, New Hanover, Pemberton, Wrightstown)

Region 3 is economically and culturally anchored by Joint Base McGuire–Dix–Lakehurst. While Mount Holly is not a base town, it is demographically similar to them. Civilian base employees dominate the local electorate; active-duty military personnel generally vote in their home districts. The GOP has seen its fortunes improve here since 2012, a result of inroads made with its large bloc of blue-collar white voters. Yet, as people of color comprise 42% of Region 3’s population, its overall electorate still leans durably Democratic. Tom MacArthur lost Region 3 in both 2014 and 2018, but his 40.42% 2018 showing was significantly stronger than Mitt Romney’s 33.74% performance. Some of the region’s rightward drift can be explained by lower turnout from black voters in the post-Obama era.

Region 4: Comfortable Exurbia (Chesterfield, Lumberton, Shamong, Southampton)

Region 4 spans much of Burlington County’s landmass, sprawling across exurbs, preserved farmland, and the Pinelands National Preserve. Residents generally range from middle to upper-middle class. Most of the region is too distant from Philadelphia for a daily city commute; most residents work in Burlington County while sizable shares travel to Camden or Mercer Counties.

Developers built most of the housing developments and shopping centers that define the area between the 1970s and the 1990s. Like many exurbs of its era, Region 4 has traditionally leaned Republican. Yet, due in part to a sizable middle-class black population around Mount Holly that leans heavily Democratic, that advantage is relatively modest.

Donald Trump’s divisive persona proved to mostly be a wash in Region 4. Trump slightly improved on Mitt Romney’s showing here. Outer Burlington County is a must-win for both parties; Tom MacArthur (2014) and Trump won the region while carrying the district, and Romney and MacArthur (2018) narrowly lost it while losing district-wide. Though its residents are mostly financially comfortable, education rates and incomes in Region 4 are lower than those in most suburbs that swung heavily towards Hillary Clinton in 2016. South Jersey also has much less corporate employment than does Southeastern Pennsylvania, giving exurban Burlington County more of a blue-collar cultural feel than its counterpart exurbs across the river.

Region 5: Striving Black Exurbia (Willingboro)

Willingboro Township is home to one of the Delaware Valley’s largest suburban concentrations of working-to-middle-class black families, but its present demographics belie its history rooted in white supremacy. In the late 1950s, William Levitt developed his third mass-produced, postwar suburb in Burlington County. Like in the Levittowns in New York and Pennsylvania, Levitt & Sons practiced discriminatory housing policies, selling only to whites and enforcing deed restrictions designed to ensure a whites-only community. By the early 1960s, a black officer stationed at Fort Dix successfully sued Levitt & Sons on anti-discrimination grounds. The resulting New Jersey Supreme Court legal decision opened Willingboro to black homebuyers in the early 1960s. Subsequent blockbusting caused a rapid racial shift: the township was 12% non-white in 1970 but a full 67% black by 2000. As in other black suburbs, the GOP struggles to crack double-digit performances in Willingboro. In a sign of Willingboro’s importance to Burlington County Democrats, Andy Kim’s 11,325-vote win in the township was 2.9x larger than his overall margin of victory.

Region 6: Ocean County (Barnegat, Berkeley, Brick, Toms River)

NJ-03’s slice of the distant, postwar New York exurb of Ocean County forms Region 6. Ocean County has long been popular with middle-class families and retirees seeking affordability in notoriously high-tax New Jersey. Most Ocean County residents work locally, although many commute to Monmouth County.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ocean County has long been a Republican bastion. The county was 84.5% non-Hispanic white in 2018, and its blue-collar electorate has trended further right in the Trump era. Turnout plummeted in Ocean County in 2012 in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and Mitt Romney slightly lagged John McCain’s 2008 performance. Four years later, Donald Trump rocketed to the county’s strongest Republican presidential electoral showing since 1988.

Amid a blue wave crashing over Burlington County, Tom MacArthur held remarkably steady at 2014 performance levels in Ocean County. MacArthur performed a full 5% better than Romney here in 2018, suggesting that the GOP is consolidating its gains in an already blood-red exurb, quite a rarity in the Northeast. Organizational trouble looms, however: in January, 2019, Ocean County GOP machine boss George Gilmore was indicted on charges of tax fraud.

Conclusions

Geographic realities and countervailing electoral and demographic trends promise to keep NJ-03 a swing district. While Burlington County has trended towards the Democrats this decade, Ocean County continues to drift rightward in the Trump era. Though the GOP saw the same 2016/2018 upscale suburban collapse in parts of Burlington County as it did nationwide, 2020 will tell if the modest gains President Trump made in blue-collar corners of the county will hold. As Burlington County is home to a smaller share of upscale moderates than are most other suburban Philadelphia counties, the GOP may see a slower decline in Burlington. State Sen. Dawn Marie Addiego’s George Norcross-brokered R->D party switch, however, portends trouble for the GOP’s long-term local prospects.

Irrespective of Andy Kim’s fate in his 2020 reelection bid, Democrats will look to the redistricting table to tilt the Republican-leaning district in their direction come 2022. Yet, there are too many solidly Republican towns along the Jersey Shore to stuff solely into the dark red 4th district to the north. Based on New Jersey’s political geography alone, a sizable bloc of Ocean County Republicans will likely keep the 3rd district a swing seat in any map.