New Jersey's 6th Congressional District election, 2018

General election

General election for U.S. House New Jersey District 6

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Frank Pallone Jr. (D)	63.6	140,752
		Rich Pezzullo (R)	36.4	80,443

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 221,195 (100.00% precincts reporting)
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Elections in New Jersey, 2018

• General election: Nov. 6
• Voter registration deadline: Oct. 16
• Early voting: Sept. 22 - Nov. 5
• Absentee voting deadline: Nov. 6

• Online registration: No
• Same-day registration: No
• Voter ID: No
• Poll times: 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

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On the ballot: U.S. Senate • U.S. House • Special state legislative • State ballot measures • School boards • Municipal • Democratic primaries • Republican primaries

2020 → ← 2016
New Jersey's 6th Congressional District
Democratic primary Republican primary General election
Election details
Filing deadline: April 2, 2018
Primary: June 5, 2018 General: November 6, 2018 Pre-election incumbent: Frank Pallone Jr. (Democrat)
How to vote
Poll times: 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voting in New Jersey
Race ratings
Cook Partisan Voter Index (2018): D+9 Cook Political Report: Solid Democratic Inside Elections: Solid Democratic Sabato's Crystal Ball: Safe Democratic
Ballotpedia analysis
U.S. Senate battlegrounds U.S. House battlegrounds Federal and state primary competitiveness Ballotpedia's Election Analysis Hub, 2018
See also
New Jersey's 6th Congressional District U.S. Senate • 1st • 2nd • 3rd • 4th • 5th • 6th • 7th • 8th • 9th • 10th • 11th • 12th New Jersey elections, 2018 U.S. Congress elections, 2018 U.S. Senate elections, 2018 U.S. House elections, 2018 Alabama U.S. House racesAlaska U.S. House racesArizona U.S. House racesArkansas U.S. House racesCalifornia U.S. House racesColorado U.S. House racesConnecticut U.S. House racesDelaware U.S. House racesFlorida U.S. House racesGeorgia U.S. House racesHawaii U.S. House racesIdaho U.S. House racesIllinois U.S. House racesIndiana U.S. House racesIowa U.S. House racesKansas U.S. House racesKentucky U.S. House racesLouisiana U.S. House racesMaine U.S. House racesMaryland U.S. House racesMassachusetts U.S. House racesMichigan U.S. House racesMinnesota U.S. House racesMississippi U.S. House racesMissouri U.S. House racesMontana U.S. House racesNebraska U.S. House racesNevada U.S. House racesNew Hampshire U.S. House racesNew Jersey U.S. House racesNew Mexico U.S. House racesNew York U.S. House racesNorth Carolina U.S. House racesNorth Dakota U.S. House racesOhio U.S. House racesOklahoma U.S. House racesOregon U.S. House racesPennsylvania U.S. House racesRhode Island U.S. House racesSouth Carolina U.S. House racesSouth Dakota U.S. House racesTennessee U.S. House racesTexas U.S. House racesUtah U.S. House racesVermont U.S. House racesVirginia U.S. House racesWashington U.S. House racesWest Virginia U.S. House racesWisconsin U.S. House racesWyoming U.S. House racesSubmit

All U.S. congressional districts, including the 6th Congressional District of New Jersey, held elections in 2018.

Heading into the election the incumbent was Frank Pallone Jr. (D), who was first elected in 1992. He previously represented New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District from 1988-1993.

New Jersey's 6th Congressional District is located in the eastern portion of the state and includes parts of Monmouth and Middlesex counties.

Candidates and election results

General election

General election for U.S. House New Jersey District 6

Incumbent Frank Pallone Jr. defeated Rich Pezzullo in the general election for U.S. House New Jersey District 6 on November 6, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Frank Pallone Jr. (D)	63.6	140,752
		Rich Pezzullo (R)	36.4	80,443

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 221,195 (100.00% precincts reporting)
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 6

Incumbent Frank Pallone Jr. defeated Javahn Walker in the Democratic primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 6 on June 5, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Frank Pallone Jr.	86.2	23,621
	Submit photo	Javahn Walker	13.8	3,770

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified.	Total votes: 27,391
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 6

Rich Pezzullo advanced from the Republican primary for U.S. House New Jersey District 6 on June 5, 2018.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Rich Pezzullo	100.0	9,827

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified.	Total votes: 9,827
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

District analysis

See also: The Cook Political Report's Partisan Voter Index

See also: FiveThirtyEight's elasticity scores

The 2017 Cook Partisan Voter Index for this district was D+9, meaning that in the previous two presidential elections, this district's results were 9 percentage points more Democratic than the national average. This made New Jersey's 6th Congressional District the 132nd most Democratic nationally.

FiveThirtyEight's September 2018 elasticity score for states and congressional districts measured "how sensitive it is to changes in the national political environment." This district's elasticity score was 0.99. This means that for every 1 point the national political mood moved toward a party, the district was expected to move 0.99 points toward that party.

Campaign finance

The chart below contains data from financial reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission.

Name	Party	Receipts*	Disbursements**	Cash on hand	Date
Frank Pallone Jr.	Democratic Party	$2,810,635	$1,722,277	$2,127,577	As of December 31, 2018
Rich Pezzullo	Republican Party	$108,375	$51,206	$57,169	As of December 31, 2018
Source: Federal Elections Commission, "Campaign finance data," 2018. This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). * According to the FEC, "Receipts are anything of value (money, goods, services or property) received by a political committee." ** According to the FEC, a disbursement "is a purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit or gift of money or anything of value to influence a federal election," plus other kinds of payments not made to influence a federal election.

District history

2016

See also: New Jersey's 6th Congressional District election, 2016

Heading into the election, Ballotpedia rated this race as safely Democratic. Incumbent Frank Pallone Jr. (D) defeated Brent Sonnek-Schmelz (R), Judi Shamy (L), and Rajit Malliah (G) in the general election on November 8, 2016. No candidate faced a primary opponent in June. Pallone won re-election in the November 8 election.

U.S. House, New Jersey District 6 General Election, 2016

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Frank Pallone Incumbent	63.7%	167,895
	Republican	Brent Sonnek-Schmelz	34.9%	91,908
	Green	Rajit Malliah	0.7%	1,912
	Libertarian	Judi Shamy	0.7%	1,720
Total Votes				263,435
Source: New Jersey Division of Elections

2014

See also: New Jersey's 6th Congressional District elections, 2014

New Jersey's 6th Congressional District held an election for the U.S. House of Representatives on November 4, 2014. Incumbent Frank Pallone Jr. (D) defeated Anthony Wilkinson (R) and Dorit Goikhman (L) in the general election.

U.S. House, New Jersey District 6 General Election, 2014

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Frank Pallone Incumbent	59.9%	72,190
	Republican	Anthony Wilkinson	38.9%	46,891
	Libertarian	Dorit Goikhman	1.1%	1,376
Total Votes				120,457
Source: New Jersey Division of Elections

Pivot Counties

See also: Pivot Counties by state

Two of 21 New Jersey counties—9.5 percent—are Pivot Counties. Pivot Counties are counties that voted for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012 and for Donald Trump (R) in 2016. Altogether, the nation had 206 Pivot Counties, with most being concentrated in upper midwestern and northeastern states.

Counties won by Trump in 2016 and Obama in 2012 and 2008
County	Trump margin of victory in 2016	Obama margin of victory in 2012	Obama margin of victory in 2008
Gloucester County, New Jersey	0.48%	10.77%	12.16%
Salem County, New Jersey	15.00%	1.31%	3.92%

In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton (D) won New Jersey with 55.5 percent of the vote. Donald Trump (R) received 41.4 percent. In presidential elections between 1900 and 2016, New Jersey voted Democratic 46.67 percent of the time and Republican 53.33 percent of the time. In the five presidential elections between 2000 and 2016, New Jersey voted Democratic all five times.

State overview

Partisan control

This section details the partisan control of federal and state positions in New Jersey heading into the 2018 elections.

Congressional delegation

• Democrats held both U.S. Senate seats in New Jersey.
• Democrats held seven of 12 U.S. House seats in New Jersey, and Republicans held five.

State executives

• As of May 2018, Democrats held five of 14 state executive positions. The other nine positions were held by nonpartisan officials.
• The governor of New Jersey was Democrat Phil Murphy.

State legislature

• Democrats controlled both chambers of the New Jersey State Legislature. They had a 54-26 majority in the state Assembly and a 25-15 majority in the state Senate.

Trifecta status

• New Jersey was a Democratic trifecta, meaning that the Democratic Party held the governorship, a majority in the state Senate, and a majority in the state Assembly.

2018 elections

See also: New Jersey elections, 2018

New Jersey held elections for the following positions in 2018:

• The Class 1 U.S. Senate seat held by Bob Menendez (D)
• All 12 U.S. House seats
• Local judicial offices
• Local school boards
• Municipal elections in Newark and Essex County

Demographics

Demographic data for New Jersey
	New Jersey	U.S.
Total population:	8,935,421	316,515,021
Land area (sq mi):	7,354	3,531,905
Race and ethnicity**
White:	68.3%	73.6%
Black/African American:	13.5%	12.6%
Asian:	9%	5.1%
Native American:	0.2%	0.8%
Pacific Islander:	0%	0.2%
Two or more:	2.5%	3%
Hispanic/Latino:	19%	17.1%
Education
High school graduation rate:	88.6%	86.7%
College graduation rate:	36.8%	29.8%
Income
Median household income:	$72,093	$53,889
Persons below poverty level:	12.7%	11.3%
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, "American Community Survey" (5-year estimates 2010-2015) Click here for more information on the 2020 census and here for more on its impact on the redistricting process in New Jersey. **Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.

As of July 2016, New Jersey had a population of approximately 9 million people, and its three largest cities were New Jersey (pop. est. 283,000), Jersey City (pop. est. 265,000), and Paterson (pop. est. 147,000).

State election history

This section provides an overview of federal and state elections in New Jersey from 2000 to 2016.

Historical elections

Presidential elections, 2000-2016

This chart shows the results of the presidential election in New Jersey every year from 2000 to 2016.

Election results (President of the United States), New Jersey 2000-2016
Year	First-place candidate	First-place candidate votes (%)	Second-place candidate	Second-place candidate votes (%)	Margin of victory (%)
2016	Hillary Clinton	55.5%	Donald Trump	41.4%	14.1%
2012	Barack Obama	58.4%	Mitt Romney	40.6%	17.8%
2008	Barack Obama	57.2%	John McCain	41.7%	15.5%
2004	John Kerry	52.9%	George W. Bush	46.2%	6.7%
2000	Al Gore	56.1%	George W. Bush	40.3%	15.8%

U.S. Senate elections, 2000-2016

This chart shows the results of U.S. Senate races in New Jersey from 2000 to 2016. Every state has two Senate seats, and each seat goes up for election every six years. The terms of the seats are staggered so that roughly one-third of the seats are up every two years.

Election results (U.S. Senator), New Jersey 2000-2016
Year	First-place candidate	First-place candidate votes (%)	Second-place candidate	Second-place candidate votes (%)	Margin of victory (%)
2014	Cory Booker	55.8%	Jeff Bell	42.3%	13.5%
2012	Bob Menendez	58.9%	Joseph Kyrillos	39.4%	19.5%
2008	Frank Lautenberg	56.0%	Dick Zimmer	42.0%	14.0%
2006	Bob Menendez	53.3%	Thomas Kean Jr.	44.3%	9.0%
2002	Frank Lautenberg	53.9%	Doug Forrester	44.0%	9.9%
2000	Jon Corzine	50.1%	Bob Franks	47.1%	3.0%

Gubernatorial elections, 2001-2017

This chart shows the results of the five gubernatorial elections held between 2001 and 2017. Gubernatorial elections are held every four years in New Jersey, and, unlike most states, they take place in odd years.

Election results (Governor), New Jersey 2000-2016
Year	First-place candidate	First-place candidate votes (%)	Second-place candidate	Second-place candidate votes (%)	Margin of victory (%)
2017	Phil Murphy	56.0%	Kim Guadagno	41.9%	14.1%
2013	Chris Christie	60.3%	Barbara Buono	38.2%	22.1%
2009	Chris Christie	48.5%	Jon Corzine	44.9%	3.6%
2005	Jon Corzine	53.5%	Doug Forrester	43.0%	10.5%
2001	Jim McGreevey	56.4%	Bret Schundler	41.7%	14.7%

Congressional delegation, 2000-2016

This chart shows the number of Democrats and Republicans who were elected to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House from 2000 to 2016. Elections for U.S. House seats are held every two years.

Congressional delegation, New Jersey 2000-2016
Year	Republicans	Republicans (%)	Democrats	Democrats (%)	Balance of power
2016	5	41.7%	7	58.3%	D+2
2014	6	50.0%	6	50.0%	Even
2012	6	50.0%	6	50.0%	Even
2010	6	46.2%	7	53.8%	D+1
2008	5	38.5%	8	61.5%	D+3
2006	6	46.2%	7	53.8%	D+1
2004	6	46.2%	7	53.8%	D+1
2002	6	46.2%	7	53.8%	D+1
2000	6	46.2%	7	53.8%	D+1

Trifectas, 1992-2018

A state government trifecta occurs when one party controls both chambers of the state legislature and the governor's office.

New Jersey Party Control: 1992-2025
Fourteen years of Democratic trifectas  •  Eight years of Republican trifectas
Scroll left and right on the table below to view more years.

Year	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	00	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25
Governor	D	D	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
Senate	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	S	S	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
Assembly	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	R	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D

,

See also

• New Jersey's 6th Congressional District election (June 5, 2018 Democratic primary)
• New Jersey's 6th Congressional District election (June 5, 2018 Republican primary)
• United States House of Representatives elections in New Jersey, 2018
• United States House of Representatives elections, 2018

Footnotes

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New Jersey's current delegation to the United States Congress

Senators

Cory Booker (D)

Andrew Kim (D)

Representatives

District 1

Donald Norcross (D)

District 2

Jeff Van Drew (R)

District 3

Herbert Conaway (D)

District 4

Chris Smith (R)

District 5

Josh Gottheimer (D)

District 6

Frank Pallone (D)

District 7

Thomas Kean (R)

District 8

Robert Menendez (D)

District 9

Nellie Pou (D)

District 10

LaMonica McIver (D)

District 11

Mikie Sherrill (D)

District 12

Bonnie Coleman (D)

Democratic Party (11)

Republican Party (3)