New Jersey Democrats defied speculation and wound up not only defending every state legislative seat targeted by Republicans but also gaining a net five seats in the state Assembly to strengthen their two-decade control in Trenton.

The Associated Press called the last outstanding race a little before 1 p.m. on Wednesday, giving two incumbent Republicans the win in South Jersey’s 8th District. According to the final tallies, the Democrats will keep their 25-15 majority in the Senate. They lost the Senate seat in the strongly Republican 12th, which they were expected to lose, but they won back South Jersey’s 3rd District Senate seat lost in the 2021 upset of then-Senate President Steve Sweeney.

In the Assembly, Democrats will increase their majority by five to 51-29, having won back the two Assembly seats in the 3rd and two in the 11th that the party lost two years ago, as well as a surprise pickup in the very red 30th District in Ocean County.

Republicans, meanwhile, had hoped to hold all three seats in the 3rd, turn the 11th fully red, capture the 4th in South Jersey and 16th in central Jersey and had targeted three other districts. They lost all of them.

Losers weepers?

“The Republican State Leadership Committee invested millions and they spent a lot of time in the press saying that they were going to take home wins in New Jersey,” said Jessica Post, president emerita of the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “They brought home a bunch of losses.”

Bob Hugin, chairman of the New Jersey State Republican Committee, called the legislative results “disappointing,” although he pointed out the party won some mayoral, county and local races.

“We need to rigorously review and understand the lessons that led to disappointments in the areas where we did not do well,” Hugin said in a statement. “We lost significant ground in legislative races … Though we are the big tent party and as such will have challenging primaries, we must do a better job of coming together and commit to defeating Democrats in the general election.”

For the GOP, the only seat they flipped was in the 12th District based in Monmouth and Middlesex counties, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 33% to 27%. Republican Owen Henry won the Senate seat with 63% of the vote. He will replace retiring Sen. Samuel Thompson, a longtime Republican who switched parties and became a Democrat earlier this year after losing GOP backing for a reelection bid.

Four Republican incumbents, all freshmen elected in the 2021 red wave that swept through the south and shore areas, and one newcomer all lost.

Easy win in 3rd District

In arguably the state’s closest-watched race, Republican Sen. Edward Durr was defeated in the 3rd District by former Assembly member John Burzichelli, who beat Durr comfortably by a 6-point margin. On Durr’s GOP ticket, Assemblywoman Bethanne McCarthy Patrick and running mate Thomas Tedesco also were defeated by Democrats Heather Simmons and Dave Bailey, although by a slimmer margin of fewer than 1,000 votes.

In Monmouth’s 11th District, Democratic Sen. Vin Gopal’s surprisingly large 20-point victory over Republican Stephen Dnistrian also swept in running mates Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul for Assembly, ousting incumbent Republicans Marilyn Piperno and Kim Eulner.

The Democrats’ fifth win was in the 30th District, where Republicans dominate, comprising 40% of registrants, compared with 19% who are Democrats. Rabbi Alexander “Avi” Schnall easily defeated Republican incumbent Edward Thompson for one of the two Assembly seats. Incumbent Republican Sean Kean won the other and longtime Sen. Robert Singer, a Republican, also was reelected.

Schnall won with the backing of Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish voters and polled 27,909 votes as of the latest report from the AP at 4:20 p.m. Wednesday, compared with 17,700 for Thompson. The other Democratic Assembly candidate, Salvatore Frascino, got only 8,476 votes.

GOP expected to pick up seats

Ben Dworkin, director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship, said this was supposed to be a good year for Republicans because it was a gubernatorial midterm, the party was riding momentum from its gain of a net seven seats in 2021, and the new legislative district map is one that some Republicans supported.

“Many observers, including legislative leadership, expected [Republicans] could add seats,” Dworkin said. “Instead, the Democrats pulled an inside straight.”

Republicans were relying on the culture-war issue of “parental rights,” a catchphrase for conservatives upset about a range of controversial school policies, from notification of parents if a child’s gender identity at school is different than at home to challenges to some library books that include content about sex and gender identity. Also at issue was the Murphy administration’s climate policies that cover offshore wind and a phaseout of the sale of gas-powered cars beginning in 2035.

‘The turnout this cycle is an unacceptable outcome for our democracy. There is something wrong when approximately 30% of voters determine the outcome of our elections.’ — Bob Hugin, chairman, New Jersey State Republican Committee

But Dworkin said it turned out voters were more concerned about pocketbook issues, more often used by Republicans in the past but this time pushed by Democrats.

“The irony is that it was the Democrats talking tax relief, not the Republicans, and that worked,” Dworkin said. “The culture war issues in a low-turnout election didn’t matter enough for the Republicans.”

‘What can we do…?’

Hugin lamented the low turnout, which he estimated at around 30% and said Republicans must do better at getting their supporters to vote early in person or using mail-in ballots, something many in the GOP continue to balk at but Democrats used effectively in races in South Jersey and statewide to win.

“What can we do to get more New Jerseyans to recognize the importance of getting out to vote?” Hugin said.

“The turnout this cycle is an unacceptable outcome for our democracy. There is something wrong when approximately 30% of voters determine the outcome of our elections. Though we made small gains in vote by mail and early voting, we must accelerate and improve our plans for closing the gap with Democrats.”

An NJ Spotlight News analysis of turnout reported by the counties found that, so far, about 26% of those registered voted. The final turnout will be higher because mail-in ballots are still being accepted and some votes are still being counted. In 2019, the last time the Legislature topped balloting, the turnout was 27%.

Democrats at the national level, meanwhile, are looking at the party’s performance at the state level in New Jersey as a potential model for efforts elsewhere. Said Heather Williams, interim president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, “I know there’s a lot to learn from what happened in New Jersey, big success points, and we’re gonna dig into that as soon as we can.”

Find all the legislative election results on NJ Spotlight News’ elections page.

Editor’s note: On Nov. 10 at 10:30 a.m., The Associated Press rescinded its call of a winner in the race for Assembly in the 8th District after Democrat Andrea Katz pulled ahead of Republican incumbent Brandon Umba by 27 votes. That race is now too close to call. If Katz wins it would mean the Democrats picked up six seats in total.