New Jersey's 15th Legislative District is one of 40 in the New Jersey Legislature, covering the Hunterdon County municipalities of Delaware Township, East Amwell Township, Frenchtown, Kingwood, Lambertville City Stockton, and West Amwell Township; and the Mercer County municipalities of Ewing Township, Hopewell Borough, Hopewell Township, Lawrence Township, Pennington Borough, Trenton City and West Windsor Township.
Demographic characteristics
As of the 2020 United States census, the district had a population of 224,002, of whom 174,477 (77.9%) were of voting age. The racial makeup of the district was 86,762 (38.7%) White, 57,461 (25.7%) African American, 1,700 (0.8%) Native American, 26,345 (11.8%) Asian, 139 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 32,929 (14.7%) from some other race, and 18,666 (8.3%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 53,100 (23.7%) of the population.
The district had 149,156 registered voters as of December 1, 2021, of whom 53,472 (35.8%) were registered as unaffiliated, 73,283 (49.1%) were registered as Democrats, 20,031 (13.4%) were registered as Republicans, and 2,370 (1.6%) were registered to other parties.
The district includes New Jersey's capital, Trenton and a number of its comparatively wealthier suburbs to the north. The district has the smallest population of any district in the state, and has a comparatively higher percentage of African-American residents and a notable percentage of children in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by an almost 3 to 1 margin.
Political representation
The district is represented for the 2020–2021 Legislative Session (Senate, General Assembly) in the State Senate by Shirley Turner (D, Lawrence Township) and in the General Assembly by Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D, Trenton) and Anthony Verrelli (D, Hopewell Township).
It overlaps with New Jersey's 7th and 12th congressional districts.
1967–1973
In the interim period after the 1964 Supreme Court decision Reynolds v. Sims which required the creation of state legislature districts to be made as equal in population as possible and the 1973 creation of the 40-district map, the 15th District was based in the rural northwestern counties of the state. In the 1967 and 1969 elections, the district consisted of all of Hunterdon, Warren, and Sussex counties which sent one senator and two Assembly members to the legislature, elected at-large. For the 1971 election, the district was made up of only Warren and Sussex counties, again electing one senator and two Assembly members. Republican Wayne Dumont won both Senate elections for the 15th District in this period. In the Assembly elections, Republican Robert Littell won one seat in each of the three Assembly elections in the 15th District. Incumbent Republican assemblyman from Hunterdon County Douglas E. Gimson won re-election to the Assembly in 1967 from this district but died on May 15, 1969. Republicans chose Walter E. Foran to be the other Republican candidate in 1969's general election resulting in a lawsuit from third-place finisher Walter C. Keogh-Dwyer. Foran was elected to the other seat in 1969 and served one term until his home county was moved to the 6th District in 1971. Keogh-Dwyer sought election to the Assembly again in 1971 but was successful in this election.
Election history since 1973
In the 40-district legislative map created in 1973, the 15th District consisted of all of Warren and Sussex counties and West Milford and Ringwood in Passaic County. With the exception of the district electing one Democrat to the Assembly in the 1973 general election, the district had been solidly Republican until 1982. When redistricting following the 1980 United States Census shifted the district to the Trenton area, the 15th District became a strongly Democratic district. The new 15th District consisted of Trenton, Ewing, Lawrence Township, West Windsor, Princeton Township and Princeton Borough. The 1981 elections brought in Democrats Gerald R. Stockman in the Senate, along with Gerard S. Naples and John S. Watson in the Assembly. The trio remained together in office for a decade.