CAWP Releases Latest Update of Data Tracking the Demographics of New Jersey’s Elected and Appointed Officials

The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, continues its ongoing work tracking the demographics of the Garden State’s elected officials at the congressional, state, county, and local levels, as well as state-level appointees. CAWP once again finds that when examining race and gender data, most groups, other than white men, are significantly underrepresented in state government.

Read the full reports, which include complete numbers and recommendations to enhance data collection and the future sustainability of the project, at From Data to Diversity 2025: The Demographics of New Jersey’s Elected Officials and From Data to Diversity 2025: The Demographics of New Jersey’s Appointed Officials.

“Little has changed for the representation of women and people of color, and the challenges collecting this data in a systematic way persist,” said CAWP Associate Director Jean Sinzdak. “In this report, we make recommendations to enhance government participation in this data collection and increase government transparency. Good governance relies on open governance.”

Here are some key findings about elected and appointed officeholders in the 2025 update to this report:

Elected Officeholders

• White men are 26.4% of New Jersey’s population but hold 52.5% of offices at the congressional, state legislative, and county levels.
• Across all levels of office, women comprise 30.5% of officeholders, almost unchanged from 29.5% reported in 2023. This mirrors national proportions, with women’s representation across most levels of office hovering at or under a third of officeholders.
• Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Latino New Jerseyans are significantly underrepresented in congressional, state legislative, and county offices in New Jersey, with men and women of both groups represented at less than half their proportions of their population in the state.
• While Black men and women have made strides at some levels of office, particularly in Congress and the state Legislature, they are significantly underrepresented in municipal offices relative to their share of the population.
• Women made significant gains as members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, with two new women members of Congress elected in 2024, including the state’s first Latina to serve in Congress. Women now represent 28.6% of New Jersey’s delegation to the U.S. Congress. With the election of Andy Kim to the U.S. Senate, New Jersey has sent the first AAPI person to represent the state in the Senate.

Appointed Officeholders

• White men are the only race/gender group whose proportion of appointed offices is greater than their population share. They are 26.4% of New Jersey’s population but hold 40.4% of state appointed offices included in the study.
• Women hold just 35.4% of appointed offices.
• As with elected offices, AAPI and Latino New Jerseyans are significantly underrepresented in appointed offices included in this report, with men and women of both groups represented at less than half their proportions of their population in the state. Black men and women are also underrepresented in appointed offices relative to their share of the population.

Read the full reports, including complete data and recommendations from CAWP on how to build this database further and sustain its future, at From Data to Diversity 2025: The Demographics of New Jersey’s Elected Officials and From Data to Diversity 2025: The Demographics of New Jersey’s Appointed Officials.