Stalled Progress: Another Status Quo Year for New Jersey Women

New Jersey has shown minimal progress over the past year for women’s representation in local and county offices, according to a new analysis from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Union County retains the top spot in an overall ranking based on an average rank of women’s representation on local councils, mayoralties, and commissionerships. Mercer, which shared the top rank with Union in 2020, dropped to fourth place in the overall rankings, while continuing to lead New Jersey in women’s representation on town councils. Union also leads the state in women’s share of mayoralties and county commissionerships.

The state continues to see incremental progress in women’s overall representation in these offices. Women gained eight mayoralties between 2020 and 2021, an identical change as 2019 to 2020, while women gained two seats on county commissions, one more than in the previous report card. As for seats on city councils and similar offices, women gained just 15 seats since the last time CAWP compiled this data; CAWP’s 2020 New Jersey County Report Card showed a gain of 68 council seats. Women now hold 18% of mayoralties, 35% of county commissionerships, and 30% of city council seats. According to CAWP’s recently-released data collection, Women in Municipal Office, which tracks women in mayoral and city council offices in incorporated cities and towns with populations over 10,000 (but does not include county commissions), New Jersey ranks 25th in the nation for women’s representation in municipal office.

“It’s discouraging to see such plodding progress for women here in New Jersey,” said CAWP Associate Director Jean Sinzdak, “but in a state where political opportunities are so tightly controlled by the parties, it’s really incumbent upon party leaders to redouble their efforts in candidate recruiting and support to help make New Jersey’s governing bodies representative of the communities they serve.”

Sinzdak also encouraged women in New Jersey to take advantage of the many programs, events, and resources that the Center makes available for women interested in pursuing a career in politics, including our campaign training program, Ready to Run® and our programs that encourage and highlight the political participation of women of color: the Senator Wynona Lipman Chair in Women’s Political Leadership lecture and the campaign training programs Elección Latina, Rising Stars, and Run Sister Run. The sluggish pace of change in women’s representation over the past two decades is captured in the following graph that shows women’s proportion of mayoralties and county commissionerships from 2003 to 2021.

Union continues to lead New Jersey counties in women’s share of mayor’s offices, with 9 mayoralties (43%) held by women. Burlington is the second-highest-ranked county for women mayors, with 11 (28%) mayoralties held by women. Warren County, which has just one woman mayor in 2021, ranks last. In 16 counties, men hold 80% or more of mayoral offices in the county. Union also leads the state in women’s proportion of county commissioners, with 6 of 9 (67%) seats held by women. Women are also the majority of county commissioners in Somerset (60%) and Bergen (57%). Salem County continues to have zero women on its board of commissioners. Warren County, which also had zero women commissioners in 2020, gained a woman on its three-member county board. Men hold 80% or more county commission seats in six New Jersey counties. Mercer is the top-ranked county in the state for women’s representation in town councils, with women holding 44% of council seats. It is the only county in which women make up more than 40% of town council members. Cumberland County ranks last for women’s share of town council seats, with just 13% of seats held by women. Women hold less than one-third of town council seats in 15 New Jersey counties.

Full tables of the overall county ranking and the rankings for mayoralties, county commissions, and town councils follow on pages 3 and 4 of this release.

For additional information about women in New Jersey politics, including previous county report cards, milestones, and women officeholders currently and over time, visit the New Jersey Facts page on the CAWP website.