New Jersey's 40th legislative district is one of 40 districts that make up the map for the New Jersey Legislature. It covers the Bergen County municipalities of Franklin Lakes, Ridgewood, and Wyckoff; the Essex County municipalities of Caldwell, Cedar Grove, Essex Fells, Fairfield, North Caldwell, Verona, and West Caldwell; and the Passaic County municipalities of Little Falls, Hawthorne, Totowa, Wayne and Woodland Park.Districts, New Jersey Legislature. Accessed January 31, 2024.
Demographic information As of the 2020 United States census, the district had a population of 218,353, of whom 172,104 (78.8%) were of voting age. The racial makeup of the district was 166,763 (76.4%) White, 5,141 (2.4%) African American, 455 (0.2%) Native American, 18,320 (8.4%) Asian, 39 (0.0%) Pacific Islander, 9,672 (4.4%) from some other race, and 17,963 (8.2%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 27,178 (12.4%) of the population.
The district had 191,061 registered voters , of whom 70,458 (37.5%) were registered as unaffiliated, 60,103 (31.5%) were registered as Republicans, 58,948 (30.9%) were registered as Democrats and 1,552 (0.8%) were registered to other parties.Statewide Voter Registration Summary by Legislative District, New Jersey Department of State, February 1, 2025. Accessed February 3, 2025.
Political representation
The legislative district overlaps with New Jersey's 5th, New Jersey's 9th, New Jersey's 10th, and 11th congressional districts.
Apportionment history Upon the creation of the 40-district legislative map in 1973, the 40th district consisted of western Bergen County running from Elmwood Park north along the county line to Ridgewood, then in addition to Ho-Ho-Kus and Midland Park, consisted of the larger municipalities in the northwest corner of the county. Following the 1981 redistricting, the 40th lost Elmwood Park, Ho-Ho-Kus, and Allendale, but picked up Upper Saddle River and the Passaic County boroughs of North Haledon, Pompton Lakes, Bloomingdale, and Wanaque. In the 1991 redistricting, Ramsey, Upper Saddle River, North Haledon, Pompton Lakes, and Bloomingdale were shifted to other districts, but Washington Township, Waldwick, Ringwood, and West Milford became a part of the district. Under the 2001 redistricting, the Bergen County portion of the 40th district became smaller only running along the county border from Ridgewood to Mahwah (plus Midland Park), but in addition to Ringwood and Wanaque, passed through the center of the county picking up Wayne and Little Falls and for the first time included Essex County by encompassing Cedar Grove and Verona. Mahwah and Oakland were eliminated from the Bergen County portion in the 2011 redistricting but Allendale, Ho-Ho-Kus, and Waldwick were added, more of central Passaic County was added including Totowa and Woodland Park, and Morris County's Pequannock were included within the district.
Since 1973, the district has always leaned Republican, never electing a Democrat through the 2023 general election.Cowen, Richard. "District 40, always a GOP stronghold, up for grabs on Tuesday", The Record, November 4, 2017. Accessed January 22, 2018. "Democrats have never won a seat in the 40th District since it was formed in 1973, but that losing streak could end this coming Tuesday." It is one of only nine state legislative districts statewide that has never elected more than one political party to Trenton, and with the election of a Democrat to the 16th in 2015, the only district to have elected only Republicans. It was also one of four districts in New Jersey to elect all Republicans (at the state level) in the 1974 Watergate Democratic wave.
Senator Corrado has served the district since October 2017. Previously the Clerk of Passaic County, she was appointed to replace three-term incumbent Kevin J. O'Toole of Cedar Grove, after his appointment to the Board of Commissioners of The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Kevin J. Rooney, then the mayor of Wyckoff, New Jersey, was appointed in December 2016 to replace multi-term incumbent Scott Rumana of Wayne after his appointment to the bench of the Superior Court of New Jersey.
Assemblyman DePhillips, a former mayor of Wyckoff, served in the district since January 2018. First elected in 2017, DePhillips replaced David C. Russo of Ridgewood, who was first elected in 1989 and served until he left office in 2018 after his fourteenth term.Johnson, Brent. "Meet your brand-new state Legislature taking office today, Jersey", NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, January 9, 2018. Accessed January 22, 2018. "David C. Russo, a Republican member of the Assembly from Bergen County who did not seek re-election after 28 years.... Chris DePhillips, a Republican who will succeed Russo in north Jersey's 40th District.
Election history 2023
In 2023, the Republican ticket of incumbent Chris DePhillips (seeking his fourth two-year term) and Essex County GOP chairman Al Barlas ran against the Democratic team of Giovanna Irizarry (the Woodland Park school district's director of special education) and Wyckoff small business owner Jennifer Marrinan for two seats in the general assembly; meanwhile, Hawthorne school board member Jennifer Ehrentraut ran as a Democrat for state senate against Republican incumbent Kristin Corrado. In New Jersey all state legislature seats were up for re-election in the 2023 cycle.
Following Al Barlas making public his intention to run, Wyckoff's Kevin Rooney decided against seeking re-election to his position representing the 40th district in New Jersey's general assembly; the New Jersey Globe asserted that Rooney's decision was due to redistricting including six more Essex County towns in the 40th than previously (a process that Barlas co-chaired), thus meriting a representative from the county. In January 2023, just two months after announcing his candidacy, Barlas, "...raised a mammoth $112,844...making the first-time candidate one of the top GOP fundraisers in the state"; meanwhile, Corrado had amassed $117,457 and DePhillips had $145,095 (including, in both latter cases, leftover funds from previous campaigns). If Barlas is elected, he would be the first South Asian Republican in New Jersey's legislature.
In July 2023, the New Jersey Building and Construction Trades Council (a representative body for, "...13 Local Building Trades Councils, more than 100 local unions and over 150,000 rank and file members,") revoked its endorsement of the Democratic assembly candidates, with its president, Bill Mullen, composing a letter that stated, “...we appreciate your support for New Jersey’s...union construction and allied trades...[but] the NJBCTC executive board met...and [unanimously] voted to endorse your Republican opponents in this year’s election...Please consider this communication a formal withdrawal of the NJBCTC’s endorsement". Democratic Bergen County commissioner Tom Sullivan (who was, at the time, also an IBEW union president) fought for Irizarry and Marrinan being endorsed whereas former Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney (who was also, at the time, head of the state’s Ironworkers union) advocated for the Republicans being endorsed. Local media called the representative body's flip "a highly unusual move" and a "devastating blow for the two newcomers".
In October 2023, the Corrado-DePhillips-Barlas slate released a mailer where they boasted that, "...Corrado has led the charge to expose Murphy's deadly policies that cost thousands of...lives during the pandemic," that, "...DePhillips is pushing legislation to slash the state's oppressive tax on businesses," and that, "...Barlas is running to restore commonsense values to our local schools and empower parents to be at the center of their child's education"; later the mailer tied president Joe Biden to rising inflation (via a Fox News headline) and Phil Murphy to New Jersey schools not, "...tell[ing] parents about student gender choices," (by way of a northjersey.com headline), calling them "radical Democrats" under whose leadership, "Our economy is tanking, and our values are under attack".
2021
In the November 2021 election, Republican senator Kristin Corrado (with 47,230 votes) won re-election to her second four-year term, fending off a challenge from Democratic Ridgewood deputy mayor Michael Sedon (who earned 30,237), while the slate of Republican assemblymen Kevin Rooney (with 46,004 votes) and Chris DePhillips (with 45,246) won re-election to their third full terms, defeating the Democratic team of Waldwick councilwoman Nicole McNamara (who earned 31,066 votes) and former assistant Bergen County prosecutor Genny Allard (who earned 30,606).
For 2021, The New Jersey State FMBA (a union representing career firefighters, EMTs, and dispatchers) backed the three Republicans in a slate of mixed Republican and Democrat endorsements, and the New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police (also in a politically-heterogenous round of endorsements) chose to support the three Republicans as well. Meanwhile, the three Democrats were endorsed by the New Jersey Democratic State Committee LGBTQ Caucus (to which the candidates responded that they were "humbly honored" as Democrats, "...who value equality for all Americans of every race, sexual orientation, and gender identity"); the Progressive Turnout Project endorsed the three Democrats along with 54 other New Jersey state-level progressives; and after, "Challengers...respon[ded] to [their] application and demonstrated support for women’s issues in their official campaign platform," the National Organization for Women of New Jersey PAC endorsed Democrat Genny Allard individually.
2019
In the November 2019 election, Republican assemblymen Kevin Rooney (with 22,562 votes) and Chris DePhillips (with 21,955) won re-election to their second full terms, defeating the Democratic slate of former Bergen County Freeholder Julie O'Brien (who earned 17,557 votes) and Little Falls councilwoman Maria Martini Cordonnier (who earned 17,332).
In late October 2019, DePhillips and Rooney skipped a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters, claiming that the question-selection process was "broken" and "unfair" because an earlier debate sponsored by the Wayne League of Women Voters had allowed, "...a local Democratic candidate to be part of a group that was screening questions and determining what questions would be asked". DePhillips and Rooney claimed they had spoken to the League following the Wayne debate and that, "The LWV...agreed to not allow questions from elected officials from either party," but that the organization rejected other structural requests they had made — pushing the two candidates to back down. Cordonnier and O'Brien criticized the Republicans' absence, arguing that, “...refusing to engage with [us] shows a lack of respect for their constituents and their office...As an elected official, you need to answer for your record even if you don’t like the questions".
Ridgewood Councilman Micheal Sedon (alongside Cordonnier) won the Democratic primary to challenge DePhillips and Rooney in the general election, but Sedon dropped out of the race between June and September 2019; in September, Democratic County Committee members selected O'Brien to replace Sedon on the ballot.
2017