New Jersey's Advance Vote Is Running 60 to 23 Democratic — and Insiders Now Expect at Least One Republican House Seat to Fall, NorthJersey Reports

New Jersey Democrats are reluctant to say it publicly, but many believe they are on the brink of a rout in Tuesday's midterms, the veteran political columnist Charles Stile reports for NorthJersey.com and The Record — and the advance-vote numbers underneath the belief are stark. Democrats accounted for 60 percent of the total advance vote as of October 29, having cast 522,339 ballots by Thursday, according to umichvoter, the data tracker that posts daily updates based on New Jersey Division of Elections data — nearly three-quarters of the party's entire advance vote in all of 2025, banked before Election Day. Registered Republicans had cast 199,142 ballots by Thursday, 23 percent of the votes submitted and just 51 percent of the party's early vote from last year.

The district picture follows the statewide one. Confidence is building, Stile reports, that Democrat Rebecca Bennett — a former Navy helicopter pilot — will take the 7th Congressional District from Republican Tom Kean Jr., who has held the seat since 2023: the Cook Political Report rates the race as tilting in Bennett's favor despite a Republican registration advantage of about 17,000 voters, national Republican organizations cut off funding for Kean's campaign in September, and Democrats hold a 25-point lead in the district's advanced voting, against a 10.4-point lead at the same point in last year's governor's race. In the 2nd District, Cape May mayor Zack Mullock remains a long shot against Rep. Jeff Van Drew, but operatives have stopped discounting an upset outright. The state's third Republican incumbent, Rep. Chris Smith in the 4th, is expected to win easily, and in the lone statewide race Sen. Cory Booker is expected to cruise to another term against Republican Justin Murphy.

Two cautions belong in the same story, and the column carries both. The early numbers reflect party registration, not actual votes — a ballot cast by a registered Democrat is counted in the 60 percent whatever candidate it names — and Republican officials are holding out hope that their voters, who traditionally prefer to vote in person on Election Day, close the gap on Tuesday itself. What is not in dispute is the shape of the electorate that has already voted: a Democratic-leaning one, in a state where a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found likely voters preferring Democrats by 55 percent to 32 percent. Whether Tuesday's in-person vote confirms or overturns that shape is the whole of tomorrow's story.