Red Shoots in the Garden State
Trump’s Rise and the Quiet Red Shift of New Jersey
By any standard measure, New Jersey has been a Democratic stronghold for over three decades. But the political winds blowing through the Garden State today carry the scent of revolt. Beneath the polished veneer of suburban liberalism and entrenched urban machines, the working-class backbone of New Jersey is showing signs of rebellion. The latest Emerson poll pegs Donald Trump at 47% approval in a state he lost by nearly 6 points in 2024. Governor Phil Murphy, the incumbent Democrat, lags behind at 40%. If that isn’t a warning flare for the left, it ought to be.
Trump's rise in New Jersey is more than a polling quirk—it is a symptom of the deeper disillusionment of a forgotten electorate. Compared to his dismal 38% approval in 2020, Trump has gained nearly 18 net points in five years. The self-anointed progressives who run Trenton and dominate Newark, Camden, and Paterson may have the numbers on paper, but they are losing the pulse of the people.
In the 2024 presidential contest, Kamala Harris eked out a 5.91% victory in New Jersey—a stunning 10-point drop from Biden's 2020 margin. That’s a 10.1% swing toward the Republican ticket, second only to New York in the nation. Trump flipped counties long assumed to be safe for Democrats: Gloucester, Passaic, Atlantic, Cumberland, and even Morris. This wasn’t a surge so much as a shift—a groundswell building under the feet of a party too preoccupied with cultural crusades and regulatory overreach to see the ground cracking beneath them.
Hispanic and working-class voters in places like Perth Amboy and Elizabeth didn't switch parties out of affection for Trump. They walked away from a Democratic Party that speaks more about gender theory than grocery bills. The left’s cultural priorities have become alien to many of the very voters they once relied on. The right, meanwhile, speaks bluntly—about inflation, crime, immigration, and identity. And blunt speech, like hard truth, resonates.
The voter rolls tell the same story. Since 2020, Republicans have added roughly 152,000 voters in New Jersey—a 9.8% increase. Democrats grew more slowly, up 129,000, or 5.2%. Unaffiliated voter registration declined slightly, but independents still make up over a third of the electorate. And in a state with semi-closed primaries and a vanishing county line system, these independents may finally become the kingmakers.
What’s driving this shift? High taxes, inflated housing costs, and stifling regulation are just the start. New Jersey has long been one of the most expensive states to live in. Working families are buckling under rising costs while watching state Democrats chase progressive policy victories with little tangible relief. The result: disillusionment, disaffiliation, and defection.
The 2021 gubernatorial race was a canary in the coal mine. Murphy, who cruised to a 14-point victory in 2017, barely hung on with 3.2% in 2021 against Republican Jack Ciattarelli. It was a political tremor that national media largely ignored. Now, with the 2025 gubernatorial race looming, the GOP smells opportunity.
Ciattarelli may run again. If he does, he won’t be alone. The abolition of the party-line system could open the field to Trump-aligned outsiders, independents, or populist insurgents. The state’s political elite may soon find themselves facing challengers they can neither predict nor control.
Still, caution is warranted. Democrats maintain a 900,000-voter registration edge. Urban centers like Hudson and Essex remain solidly blue. And in statewide races, the party machine still matters. Split-ticket voting in 2024 suggests that many voters who backed Trump still pulled the lever for down-ballot Democrats. That nuance matters.
But New Jersey is no longer a lock. It's a fight. And in a nation increasingly fractured along cultural, economic, and geographic lines, the Garden State may soon find itself less a Democratic fortress than a battlefield.
If the GOP can maintain momentum, speak clearly to working families, and offer candidates who challenge not just the left, but the stale remnants of its own establishment, then New Jersey may not just shift red. It may do so with thunder.