The district had 161,643 registered voters as of December 1, 2023[update], of whom 83,411 (51.6%) were registered as Democrats, 59,397 (36.7%) were registered as unaffiliated, 17,219 (10.7%) were registered as Republicans, and 1,616 (1.0%) were registered to other parties.[5]
When the 40-district legislative map was created in 1973, the 34th district was originally located in southern Passaic County containing the municipalities of Passaic, Clifton, Little Falls, West Paterson, Totowa, and Haledon.[7] After the 1981 redistricting, the 34th lost Passaic and Haledon picked up the large township of Wayne and Essex County municipalities of North Caldwell, West Caldwell, and Fairfield.[8] Following the 1991 redistricting, West Paterson was removed and the western Essex County municipalities were swapped with Glen Ridge and Bloomfield.[9]
In 2001, as a result of that year's redistricting, Bloomfield and almost all of Passaic County was removed from the district, leaving Clifton and West Paterson (renamed Woodland Park in 2007), and picking up East Orange and Montclair, municipalities formerly in the 27th district.[10]
The 34th had previously been Republican-leaning but after the 2001 redistricting, with the addition of large minority populations in East Orange and Montclair, the 34th became Democratic-leaning. 27th district Democratic assemblywoman Nia Gill defeated incumbent Republican senator Norman M. Robertson in 2001,[11] while Democratic newcomers Peter C. Eagler and Willis Edwards defeated incumbent Republican Gerald H. Zecker and his running mate Natalie R. Esposito to win the two Assembky seats.[12]
Then a resident of Montclair and capitalizing on his connections with Rudy Giuliani, Ken Kurson ran in 2003 for election to the General Assembly in the 34th district as a moderate Republican, hoping to capitalize on divisions within the Democratic Party following a bitter primary battle. In a district that was reapportioned to be "so overwhelmingly Democratic that general elections would be nothing more than a formality", Kurson received 17.6% of the vote and ran a distant third behind Democratic incumbent Peter C. Eagler (with 33.2%) and his running mate Sheila Oliver (31.0%).[13][14]
In 2017, Oliver was selected by Phil Murphy to be his running mate for Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey. While state law prohibits running for two offices on the same ballot, Democrats claimed a loophole by the fact that Lieutenant Governor is not a position where candidates are nominated by petition.[15] Oliver won both re-election to the Assembly and election on Murphy's ticket in November, and resigned her Assembly seat on January 9, 2018 to accept the statewide position.[16] Democratic committee members in Essex and Passaic Counties selected Essex County Freeholder Britnee Timberlake as her replacement in the Assembly; she was sworn in on January 29.[17][18]
The 2021 legislative reapportionment removed Clifton for the first time under the current set of legislative maps, while essentially combining parts of the 28th district (Bloomfield; Glen Ridge; Nutley) with the old 34th district (East Orange/Orange), along with Belleville (29th, 2001/2011; 28th district prior).[19]
^Golway, Terry. "Politics; Well-Connected", The New York Times, September 14, 2003. Accessed November 23, 2017. "And now a rarity -- a young Republican Assembly candidate from Montclair -- is gaining unexpected attention because of his unusual (for an aspiring state legislator) background, his enviable connections and his association with another Republican who defied expectations, Rudolph W. Giuliani. Ken Kurson, a 34-year-old writer and journalist, was Mr. Giuliani's co-author for the former New York mayor's bestseller, Leadership. Mr. Giuliani was sufficiently impressed with Mr. Kurson to hire him as deputy communications director for Giuliani Partners, which the former mayor founded after leaving office in 2001."
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