New Jersey's House delegation saw one change, and a hint that at least two other districts became competitive—in the last election before a decennial commission will change their boundaries yet again.

Jon Runyan won a race that started out strong, then narrowed, and then remained close until the last precinct reported in. The reasons that he won were threefold:

1. John Adler won New Jersey's then sole competitive district in 2008 by clinging to Barack Obama's coattails, which last night were dangerous to hold onto.
2. Adler's attempt to portray the moderate was insufficient in an election that saw voters prefer that people be conservative or liberal but not pretend to be both (or neither).
3. Adler ruined himself with the dirty tricks that he, or at least his staff under his rumored micromanagement, tried to pull against Runyan. This included recruiting a deliberate spoiler (who in the end garnered not more than one percent of the vote) and sending a goon to take pictures of Runyan's house while Runyan's 8-year-old daughter was playing on the front lawn.

Frank Pallone (D-NJ-6) and Rush Holt (D-NJ-12) held onto their respective seats, but their margins of victory were much lower this year than two years ago. An earlier report of systematic voting-machine errors in the 6th District has come to nothing. Leigh-Ann Bellew, the chairwoman of Anna Little's campaign, suggests a different explanation: gerrymandering. To be more specific, Middlesex County, parts of which fall in Districts 6 and 12, is a heavily Democratic county, as its own local races clearly showed.

(In fact, all of New Jersey's districts take very odd shapes, and the shapes of the 6th and 12th Districts are two of the oddest. The 13th District has an odder shape still: its land areas are not even contiguous, because the waters of the Elizabeth shipping channel separate the Middlesex County portion of the district from the Essex County and Hudson County portions to the north.)

All other incumbents held their seats easily, with more than comfortable margins of victory.

What this means for the next Congressional election is totally unclear. Election Data Services projects that New Jersey will lose a House seat in the current Census. The shape of the remaining twelve will be the decision of a 13-member bi-partisan commission, and to a lesser extent of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, which must appoint the 13th and "independent" member and then serve as the only community of appeal of the commission's district drawing scheme.

Unconfirmed rumors have the 11th District breaking up, perhaps among the 5th, 7th, and 8th Districts. Nevertheless, all remaining districts would see some enlargement and displacement. This could make the 6th and 12th Districts more competitive, or less.

In Essex County, Joe DiVincenzo as County Executive, and Chris Durkin as County Clerk, both retained their positions with 75 and 74 percent of the vote, respectively.

The constitutional amendment to forbid the New Jersey legislature to raid the State's unemployment benefits and disability insurance funds passed with healthy margins in all counties.

Like this article? Want to be notified of more? Click Subscribe, above.