New Jersey mail-in voting update: state of play, and can Republicans win?

New Jersey is an uphill battle. Republicans are doing well, so far.

Mail-in voting is underway and we have data up to Oct .1 for the New Jersey governor’s race.

In-person early voting begins on Oct. 28, and we have several more weeks of mail-only voting until that happens.

Republican Jack Ciattarelli, if he is to defeat Democrat Mikie Sherrill, will need Republicans not only to keep up momentum in the mail, but will likely need to outright out-vote Democrats in the in-person to have a chance at truly winning.

Mail-in voting numbers

We’ll begin by examining the current mail-in ballot return totals, as a percent. The below chart shows where each party was on the same day before the 2024 election, and where they are Oct. 1, as a proportion of all returned mail-in ballots.

All-in-all, this is nearly an R+8 gain since 2024 - a good sign.

Democrats have fallen from 66% to nearly 62%, while Republicans have gained, increasing from below 21% to nearly 25%. Other have remained flat.

In 2024, Kamala Harris won the state by nearly six points; so an R+7-8 advantage is not monumental and cannot alone flip New Jersey; it’s just one sign that Republicans are not rolling over in defeat.

The next chart shows the return rates of each party’s mail-in ballots, meaning the percent of all mail-in ballot requests have actually been cast.

In yet another good sign for the GOP, Democrats are returning the ballots slower than they were in 2024, while Republicans are returning at a higher rate. The swing here is nearly R+3. Other have ticked up slightly as well - which, given the trends, could mean more Ciattarelli independent returns.

Finally, we’ll examine the single-election mail-in ballot requests: these are voters who asked for ballots only for the coming election, rather than asking to be put on the every-election mail-in list.

It’s an indication of a voter who is motivated to vote specifically in the governor’s race - and given the GOP is the party of low propensity in the current era, more new voters is good news for Ciattarelli.

While Democrats start with the homefield advantage, nobody is really running away here either; however, since the start of the mail-in voting period, we’ve seen Republicans’ share of the single requests go from nearly 27% to over 28%, while Democrats have barely decreased, from 47.3% to 47.1%.

But again, there is one trend in that datapoint, and it’s in the GOP’s direction.

Verdict: We’re early, and in the context of total raw votes to be cast, we must keep in mind that we’re not even at 100,000 ballots cast. In 2021, over two million voted. We have a way to go.

Still, right now, Democrats are on defense. These numbers and trends do not make it certain Sherrill is safe, but they don’t make it clear Ciattarelli is barreling towards an upset.

Since the start of the election season, I maintained Ciattarelli’s odds of winning sit at 25%. Betters on Polymarket had Ciattarelli’s odds close to 10% for most of the summer, up until this point - now giving him a 20% or greater chance, in line with what I’ve been predicting.

I maintain my 25% chance estimation for Ciattarelli, and could see it increasing from here with the way things are trending.

However, I’ve noticed in the data that mail returns compared to 2024 on day one were R+12.7, and are now R+7.8; I’d really like to see this number finish above R+10 if I am to start getting excited for a Ciattarelli upset.

The true tell will be when in-person voting begins. Early in-person voting starts to show more and more who has the energy, and who does not.

Until then, if I’m a Republican, I am becoming cautiously optimistic that Ciattarelli could make this very, very close; and if I’m a Democrat, I am not nervous yet, but I’m watching closely.