Credit: (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

This year’s elections will bring the greatest turnover to the New Jersey Legislature in at least 16 years, but it’s too soon to tell whether the new faces will help make the Assembly and Senate look more like the state.

At least 18 legislators are retiring this year — a 19th will be forced out because redrawn district lines have two Democratic senators vying for the same seat. And three Assembly members are looking to move up to the Senate. Those numbers could rise by the end of Monday’s deadline to file for the June primary election. But even as it stands now, the turnover will be the largest since 2007, when 23 lawmakers left and another nine moved from the Assembly to the Senate.

All 40 seats in the Senate and 80 in the Assembly are on the ballot this year, the first after redistricting.

Last year’s redrawing of legislative district lines, done to account for population shifts documented by the 2020 decennial census, has prompted at least some of this year’s retirements, though others have chosen to run for other offices or are leaving due to age or family reasons. Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, said five of those retiring this year were first elected in 2007.

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“Then, as now, a number of the retirements were the result of running for other offices,” he said. “An overriding factor then, as now, simply seems to be age … I do think there’s some bandwagon thinking at work. I’ll go if you go, or all these others are going, so maybe it’s my time, too.”

A large exodus like this presents an opportunity to diversify the Legislature, now dominated by white men. They occupy 69% of the 120 seats in the Senate and Assembly, but make up a little more than one-quarter of the population of the state. But in the past, the parties — Republicans in particular — have not tried aggressively to add more women and people of color to their tickets. Not all of that may be the fault of the parties. Some say it can be harder to attract a more diverse candidate base, while others say party leaders in at least some counties don’t try hard enough to recruit a more diverse field of candidates.

That means the Legislature, which writes the laws for the people to live by, does not reflect a population that grows more diverse each year.

Non-Hispanic white residents made up 52% of the state’s population, according to the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey. Hispanic residents accounted for almost 22% of the population, Black residents made up 12.3% and Asian residents accounted for almost 10%. Another 4% identified as another race or multiracial.

But close to seven in 10 current lawmakers are white, while fewer than one in 10 are Hispanic, the group most underrepresented. Close to 17% of senators and Assembly members are Black and 5% are Asian.

Most of those who are leaving the Legislature are white — 12 of the 18 — but two are Black, three Hispanic and one Asian. Among them are Sen. Sandra Cunningham (D-Hudson), who was first elected in 2007 with many other newcomers, and three Democratic Hispanic Assembly members from Hudson County: Annette Chaparro, Angelica Jimenez and Pedro Mejia. Another Black Democrat, Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, is likely to replace Cunningham. The Democratic Party in the state’s most diverse county has put forth a slate that includes people of color and women but is slightly less diverse than the delegation’s current makeup.

It remains to be seen whether the parties nominate candidates of color to fill other seats now held by Black, Hispanic and Asian lawmakers but also to replace white lawmakers.

The number of women serving in Trenton has been rising slowly over the past decades; they now hold 35% of all seats. But women make up nearly 51% of the state’s population. And while the proportion of women in New Jersey’s Legislature has risen, the state’s rank compared with other states has dropped, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. In 2022, New Jersey ranked 15th for the percentage of women in the Legislature, but that declined to 21st this year, following last year’s elections in most other states. Unlike most states, New Jersey holds elections for governor and Legislature in odd-numbered years when federal races are not on the ballot.

There are far more women and people of color in the Democratic caucus in Trenton than on the Republican side. Of 71 Democrats, close to 40% are women, compared with 29% of 49 Republicans. Nearly half of Democrats in the Legislature are Black, Hispanic or Asian, while there is just one Black man and one Hispanic man in the Republican caucus.

Redistricting means that even those who are seeking reelection will have to appeal to a constituency that is at least slightly different from the one they currently represent. The first election after the drawing of new district lines often provides the best shot for newcomers without name recognition for that reason, although it is still very difficult to win a primary in the state without receiving the backing of county political parties and, in most counties, the preferable ballot position that the county line brings.

As of Friday, 75 candidates had filed for Assembly slots and 38 for Senate nominations in both parties. The vast majority were either incumbents in their districts, representatives of another legislative district or endorsed by their party. Just seven were true challengers. Each party can nominate two people for Assembly spots and one for the Senate in each of the state’s 40 districts. Voters will choose their nominees during the June 6 primary.