Democrats in New Jersey retained a comfortable majority in the General Assembly and the State Senate in Tuesday’s legislative races.
“It was a huge night,” said Nick Scutari, the Democratic Senate president. “We had good candidates. That’s why I felt confident going into this week.”
Two years ago, with the state’s Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy, at the top of the ticket, Republicans gained seven seats in the Legislature. Voters angered by the government’s Covid-19 mandates showed up to the polls in droves, a turnout that many losing Democrats called a “red wave.” Mr. Murphy became New Jersey’s first Democratic governor to be re-elected in 44 years, but he won by just three percentage points.
On Tuesday, all 120 seats in the Democrat-led Legislature were again on the ballot, and Republicans were hoping to tally further gains.
In the end, Democrats held on to win in competitive districts in southern, central and northern New Jersey and even managed to gain ground in the Assembly, cementing majorities the party has kept for 20 years in the Legislature, according to race results from The Associated Press.
Mail-in ballots are still being counted. But Democrats were likely to retain a 25-to-15 majority in the Senate and hold a roughly 50-to-30 advantage in the Assembly.
Two years ago, the most spectacular loss for Democrats was in South Jersey, where Stephen M. Sweeney, a Democratic labor leader who at the time was the Senate president, lost his seat to Edward Durr Jr., a conservative candidate who ran on a shoestring budget.
On Tuesday, Mr. Durr, a driver for a furniture store who embraced the nickname Ed the Trucker, lost to the Democratic candidate, John J. Burzichelli, by six percentage points. Mr. Burzichelli, a longtime mayor of Paulsboro, represented the district in the Assembly for 20 years before losing in 2021.
State Senator Vin Gopal, a Democrat who represents a conservative region of Monmouth County, along the Jersey Shore, finished the night with a convincing, 21-point win after a hard-fought race against Steve Dnistrian, the Republican challenger.
At the same time, the district’s two Republican Assembly members lost their seats to Mr. Gopal’s Democratic running mates: Dr. Margie Donlon, a physician, and Luanne Peterpaul, the first openly gay woman elected to the Legislature.
Voters in the county also contributed to a win for Avi Schnall, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi from Lakewood, N.J., who leads the New Jersey office of Agudath Israel of America and changed his party affiliation to run as a Democrat. Lakewood, home to a large community of ultra-Orthodox families and the biggest yeshiva outside of Israel, cast 9,137 early ballots.
Shaun Golden, the chairman of the Monmouth County Republican Committee, acknowledged that the three incumbent Republicans had “come up short.”
“Our legislative results are, to put it bluntly, a mixed bag,” he said in a statement.
Much of the rhetoric during the off-year campaigns revolved around cultural wedge issues, including abortion rights and whether schools should be required to tell parents about the way students express their gender. State policies meant to make residents less dependent on gas-powered stoves and vehicles have also been used by Republicans to energize their base.
On Tuesday evening, State Senator Andrew Zwicker, a Democrat who was first elected in District 16, near Princeton, N.J., by fewer than 100 votes, was still knocking on doors after sunset in South Brunswick, hoping to persuade last-minute voters to get to the polls. During the campaign, he was attacked for legislation he introduced opposing book bans in schools and in support of transgender youth.
Mr. Zwicker, a scientist who works in Princeton University’s plasma physics lab, said he was hopeful that the district’s residents would “see right through that.”
They apparently did. He beat his Republican opponent, Mike Pappas, a former congressman, by about 12 percentage points.
When Craig J. Coughlin, the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, showed up to vote in Fords, N.J., Tuesday afternoon, there were only two other voters present. Voter turnout statewide was low, according to preliminary data.
Mr. Coughlin credited his party’s good fortune to its focus on pocketbook issues, which, he said, “outweighed Republicans’ attempts to divide people.”
