This district is dominated by the City of Paterson, which had 149,222 residents in the 2000 U.S. Census, compared to the 18,218 residents of Hawthorne, the district's second-largest municipality. Due to the large population disparity, the winners of elections in the 35th are largely determined by the outcome of the vote in Paterson. Paterson is the lowest-income municipality within the district, with Glen Rock having the highest average income. The district ranks among the lowest of all districts in most measures of personal income and school performance, primarily due to the significance of Paterson. There also are large disparities in income, with the median household income in Glen Rock, the only municipality in Bergen County, $104,192 and in Paterson only $32,778 as of 1999. The district ranks third of all districts in the highest percentage of Hispanic residents, with Paterson reporting approximately half of its residents as Hispanic; over 38 percent in Prospect Park; and over 22 percent in Haledon. In contrast, Hispanics are only four percent or below of the populations of Hawthorne, Glen Rock and North Haledon. African Americans compose a major part of the total population, nearly one fourth of the population as of the 2000 Census.

Democrats hold about a 10 point registration advantage on Republicans. With Paterson and Prospect Park the Democratic strongholds. Republicans have an edge in registration in Glen Rock, Totowa, North Haledon and Hawthorne. Senator John A. Girgenti has been in the Senate since 1990, previously serving seven terms in the Assembly. He is known for strong law-and-order positions, and was the sponsor of a measure to restrict the state Department of Corrections program allowing inmate release with electronic monitors after a highly-publicized failure of device led to assault in district. He has also sponsored several bills to increase criminal penalties and to aid crime victims He is a full-time legislator, and was formerly the director of the Passaic County Mental Health Department.

Assemblywoman Nellie Pou is a full-time legislator who currently serves as Chair of the powerful Assembly Appropriations Committee. She was the first woman and the first Hispanic to represent the 35th district when she first took office in 1997.

Following the resignation of Assemblyman Alfred Steele after his arrest by federal authorities in September 2007 on charges of taking bribes in exchange for promising municipal business to undercover officers posing as insurance brokers, Elease Evans was selected by the Passaic County Democratic organization to fill the vacancy in the Assembly and as the Party's nominee in the November 2007 election. Mrs. Evans had been serving as Passaic County Freeholder Director and is a retired employee of the Passaic County Board of Social Services and former member and president of the Paterson Board of Education.

The City of Paterson was founded in 1791 as America's first planned industrial city by Alexander Hamilton and others who incorporated the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures. Those behind the Society believed that the water flowing over the Great Falls of the Passaic, the highest vertical drop on the East Coast, could provide energy to power industries to aid in establishing the United States as an independent economy less dependent on foreign imports. The first factory spinning cotton yarn opened in 1794, and textile production later expanded to production of flannel, silk ribbons, woolens and cotton goods. Foundries and mills also soon produced metal products such as kettles, spades, pans, and nails. Samuel Colt operated his first mill to produce guns in Paterson from 1836 to 1842, but the business failed and he later relocated to Hartford, Connecticut. In the middle of the eighteenth century the Rogers Locomotive Works was the nation's largest producer of railroad locomotives. As the Industrial Revolution further took hold, Paterson's factories employed thousands of recent immigrants, often at very low wages and under harsh working conditions.

By the 1880s, Paterson took advantage of high federal tariffs on imported silk, the cheap water power of the Great Falls and its proximity to New York City, the center of the fashion industry. The City was producing almost half the silk manufactured in the United States and had earned a national reputation as "Silk City". In 1913, a six-month general strike by 25,000 workers shut down Paterson's textile mills. The strike began with a walkout by 800 workers at Doherty and Company, the largest silk mill, as they protested the introduction of new looms that allowed a worker who had formerly tended one or two looms to work three or four simultaneously, provoking fears that the mill owners would reduce their labor force to take advantage of the higher productivity. The strike ultimately failed after 2,000 workers were arrested and employers successfully held firm against the labor demands, breaking the back of the strike by dividing labor through hiring scabs to operate the mills and negotiating separate settlements with the more skilled workers like ribbon weavers. Having broken the unity of the strike, employers announced that only those who agreed to work under pre-strike conditions could return to their jobs. On July 28, the strike ended with no gains for the workers. See The Silk Strike of 1913, Paterson Friends of the Great Falls. While Paterson's role as an industrial center would continue after the strike, the City began a gradual decline following World War II as manufacturers relocated facilities to lower-cost areas in the U.S. and abroad. See Patersonhistory.com