Download the 2022 General Election publication or view it below

Retired state Supreme Court Judge John Wallace inevitably proved a significant player in this 2022 election cycle when he concluded the redistricting process by awarding the winning congressional map to the Democrats.

That map – in use now for the next ten years, until the next scheduled U.S. Census-driven redistricting – builds fortifications for incumbents in both parties, and we consider those as a starting point for how to assess the most competitive races in this general election.

Regardless of the issues galvanizing Democrats and Republicans, certain districts would enjoy – as a consequence of Judge Wallace’s decision – numerical advantages; and ultimately one individual (see below), in order to boost the fortunes of his congressional colleagues, would have to bear the unenviable title of sacrificial lamb.

It wouldn’t be sacrifice in any kind of heroic sense. It never or seldom is in politics.

Pragmaticism for the whole drove the final dooming verdict for one; most likely turning the Democrats’ 10-2 control of the congressional delegation to 9-3 on the other side of the Nov. 8th election.

Still, that supposedly preordained political casualty appears to have a fighting chance, in the context of these times, which punish the sitting president of the party in power, yes, but also give a better than average incumbent in terms of preparation, several important galvanizing issues.

We factor those in and put them in the larger landscape of national politics, while never losing sight of the New Jersey implications of the coming collision. Ultimately, we can write pages of analysis about these elections and that one battleground in particular, but in the words of T.E. Lawrence, “Nothing is written.”

The voters will soon speak, their chorus but an echo perhaps of Judge Wallace, who hath not written – so much as spoken.

Download the 2022 General Election publication or view it below: