Political Parties Are Not the Only Winners and Losers in Redistricting

Next month, after we learn what New Jersey’s 40 Legislative districts will look like when the State Apportionment Commission completes its work, we also will get a sense of which political party fares better under the new map.

But the biggest winners in the redistricting process – at both the Legislative and Congressional levels – sometimes are not the parties themselves, but individual lawmakers.

That’s what resulted from the redistricting that took place after the 1990 Census – and it could happen again this time around. The scenarios are somewhat similar.