Which NJ Counties Have The Most Women In Politics? See The List

NEWARK, NJ — 2020 has been a record-setting year for women in New Jersey. But there’s still a long way to go when it comes to the leveling out the political gender gap in the Garden State, according to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP).

On Monday, the CAWP, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, released its annual report card, which examines how many female mayors, council members and county commissioners hold office in New Jersey.

“It's an exciting year for women and politics, with the election of the first woman vice-president, and women once again setting new records as candidates and officeholders, but the progress here in New Jersey has been glacially slow,” said CAWP Associate Director Jean Sinzdak,

The group ranked counties by their total number of women elected officials, giving each an average score. See the breakdown by mayor, council and county commissioner at the bottom of this article.

Although political parties in some counties such as Mercer and Union have made women's representation a priority– and have seen results when it comes to the ballot box – the state’s other counties need to step up their own efforts, Sinzdak said.

• See related article: GOP Women Elected To U.S. Congress Hits Record Number

According to the CAWP, the gender gap isn’t new. It’s a trend the group has been tracking since it began collecting data in 2003.

Since then, there’s been “incremental progress” across the state as a whole. And while women broke records for representation on county commissions and mayoralties in 2020, it only managed to chip away slightly at the gap, the CAWP stated.

Researchers said:

“Women gained a single commissionership since our last report card and currently hold 45 commissionerships, beating the 2019 record of 44 and now making up 33 percent of 135 county commissioners. The number of women serving in mayor's offices increased by 8 to 94, just edging out the previous record of 90, set in 2011. This is a slight two percentage-point increase from 2019, and women now make up just 17 percent of the 565 New Jersey mayors. On local councils, women gained 68 seats, currently holding 905 of 3,103 council seats; this is another two percentage-point increase over 2019, and women now make up 29 percent of local council members.”

The following statistics come courtesy of the CAWP.

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