Trump, in his other two runs for president in 2016 and 2020, lost the state by double digits. But his loss there still marked the closest a Republican has come to flipping the state since former President George H.W. Bush lost the state by 2.4 points in 1992.

“There’s a significant amount of New Jersey Democrats who are voting Republican at this point,” Chris Russell, a longtime Republican strategist in New Jersey, told the Washington Examiner.

Since former President Joe Biden took office in 2021, voters in New Jersey have been registering increasingly with the Republican Party. In 2020, New Jersey Democrats had an advantage of more than 1 million voters. Democrats’ advantage has since dwindled down to an advantage of a little more than 896,300 registered Democratic voters as of January.

Republicans outpaced Democrats in terms of voter registration every single month in the four years Biden was in office. Additionally, in January, Republicans gained 10,000 voters, and Democrats lost 2,000 registered voters.

Harris won the state by a little more than 250,000 votes, giving merit to Russell’s point. By comparison, Biden won the state by 16 points. Russell noted that state residents “may have registered as Democrats 10, 15, 20 years ago, but they’re not behaving that way when they go vote.”

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Republican Assemblyman Brian Bergen partly attributed Harris’s narrow win in New Jersey to the global trend of voters bucking their incumbent parties in 2024 elections.

He also suggested that Trump made inroads with minority communities in the state that have historically voted for Democrats. Trump won Passaic County, which traditionally votes Democratic and has a large Hispanic population.

In the urban Hudson County, which encompasses Hoboken and Jersey City, Republicans made real gains. Residents voted 35% for Trump in 2024, up from 26% in 2020.

Hudson County GOP Chairman Jose Arango said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that Democrats in the county appeared out of touch with their voters, which is 41% Hispanic.

“We have a lot of, especially in the urban areas of New Jersey, you’ve had that … left the liberal, Marxist New Yorker coming and taking over,” Arango said. He noted that many of the housing proposals in the area, which is within commuting distance to New York City, have been unpopular as some cater more to wealthier people who can afford the high prices that come with luxury development.

Republicans also flipped Atlantic County on the south Jersey Shore for the first time in decades, which Atlantic County Democratic Party Chairman Michael Suleiman said was somewhat unsurprising.

“When you have a county like Atlantic County, where less than 30% of our people have a college degree, and it’s a lot of the blue-collar, noncollege-educated folks who work in trades, or they work in the casino industry, which is still huge down here, they’re voting predominantly Republican now,” Suleiman told the Washington Examiner. “And that is a big issue,” for the Democrats’ future there, he added.

Suleiman said Democrats will have their work cut out for them to bring those voters back in a county like his.

“The demographics are the same, but the party is not resonating with working class, noncollege-educated folks anymore,” he said. “Frankly, I think everybody in the party has responsibility for that. It’s not just me blaming the national [party]. We as a county party need to identify how we can resonate with those folks again.”

Harris’s narrow win statewide, registration numbers, flips in Atlantic and Passaic counties, and improvement in Hudson County all give reason to believe Republicans have made real gains in New Jersey that could break.

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) won reelection by just 3 points in 2021 over Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli, a Democratic win that gave some Republicans in the state reason to believe New Jersey could become a battleground down the line.

“Take this four-year time frame: From the ‘21 race to the ‘24 race, the two biggest races in the state, the most watched race in the state, governor and president, both close calls,” said Russell, who worked as a top adviser on Ciattarelli’s campaign. “You take the registration numbers, which have dramatically shifted towards Republicans, and I think you look at the ’25 governor’s race as a true toss-up.

“Republicans should feel very good that if we nominate the right candidate, we can win this governor race,” he added.

State Democrats also concurred that the 2025 gubernatorial race will be pivotal, depending on who they nominate.

“The real test for this year is the governor’s race — depends on who we nominate,” Suleiman said. “Can that Democratic governor candidate do well? Because clearly, the conventional wisdom is, after two terms of Murphy, the state is ripe for a Republican governor.”

Both Democrats and Republicans have a crowded bench of candidates, with Ciattarelli running again and radio host Bill Spadea on the Republican side, and Reps. Mikie Sherill (D-NJ), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop emerging as top Democratic contenders.

Bergen noted that New Jersey Hispanic voters could be their own swing group, based on their move to the right in Passaic and Hudson counties.

“If the gubernatorial candidate on the Republican side or the Democratic side can capture that audience, that’s a big swing because a lot of people are just there in their traditional Republican-Democrat bucket, but that is a big swing group, it seems,” he said.

Bergen additionally warned the New Jersey GOP not to get complacent in the 2025 gubernatorial race. With Democrats closely hanging on in 2021 and 2025, he said Republicans need to keep the “momentum” in the state.

He said he is stressing the importance of the governor’s race “because if not, then the momentum will be killed. And if there’s not the momentum in that direction, we’re not going to look purple. We’re purple in a very active voter environment,” noting the change in voter registration in the state in the last four years.

In the last election, Trump tried to capitalize on Republican momentum in the Garden State, holding a rally on the Jersey Shore early on in his campaign last year. In the final days leading up to the election, Trump even said “I have a chance. I think I might win New Jersey.”

However, while the excitement might have felt good for the campaign, Bergen said he would prefer Republican presidential candidates not exhaust their resources campaigning in New Jersey if there is a low chance of flipping the state to make better use of their financial resources.

He did add, however, that “if there was a time for them to capture the momentum and keep it going, it’s now.”

“Maybe if they paid a little more attention to Jersey, it would certainly help downballot,” Bergen said. Whether it helps them in the election and they capture electoral votes or not, I don’t know, but I’ll tell you, a lot more attention from the presidential candidates would have a downballot translation.”

Suleiman, the Atlantic County Democratic chairman, also concurred having a national nominee visit the state could boost downballot races but noted that New Jersey has not elected a Republican in a federal race in decades.

“New Jersey is a purple state. I mean, it really is, it is getting more competitive,” he said. “But, you know, granted, Harris still won the state by 6 [points]. We haven’t elected a Republican senator in 50 years and still won a Senate seat by 9 [points].”

“The numbers don’t lie in terms of, you know, the Republican Party performed well, especially with Hispanic men, other minority men,” Henry de Koninck, a Democratic strategist in the state, told the Washington Examiner. “So, clearly, there’s something going on there that resonates, that Democrats are going to need to counter.”

Neighboring Pennsylvania, until the 2016 election, was also not considered a swing state for most of its electoral history. In 2008 and 2012, Pennsylvania was called for former President Barack Obama immediately upon polls closing as the state was all but certain to go blue. Less than 20 years later, it’s the swing state with the most electoral votes, and both Trump and Harris campaigned relentlessly there.

Other swing states come and go. Florida and Ohio, until 2016, were some of the most telling swing states. These days, both appear to be solidly Republican, for now.