Recent Trends
In national elections, the New Jersey has recently leaned towards the national Democratic Party.
It gave comfortable margins of victory to the Republican candidate in the close elections of 1948, 1968, and 1976. New Jersey was a crucial swing state in the elections of 1960, 1968, and 1992. In national elections, the state gave large victories to Democrats in the 1990s, and in the 2004 presidential election, Democratic John F. Kerry defeated George W. Bush in New Jersey by a margin of about 6 percentage points. Both in the 2008 and the 2012 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama carried the state by more than 15 percentage points.
The most recent victory by a Republican in a U.S. Senate race in the state was Clifford P. Case's reelection in 1972. Only Hawaii have had longer periods of exclusive Democratic victories in U.S. Senate races. The last Republican to hold a Senate seat from New Jersey was Nicholas F. Brady, who was appointed a U.S. Senator by Governor Thomas Kean in 1982 after Democrat Harrison A. Williams resigned the Senate seat following the Abscam investigations. Brady served eight months in office and did not seek election in his own right.
In 1992, Bill Clinton became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win New Jersey since 1964, starting a succession of Democratic national election victories. Clinton won decisively here in 1996, Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004. Obama carried the state by large margins both in 2008 and 2012.
No Republican has received 50 percent or more of the vote in any statewide New Jersey election since 1985. Christine Todd Whitman was elected governor with 47 percent of the vote in 1993 and with 49 percent in 1997.
On November 3, 2009, incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine was unseated by Republican challenger Chris Christie. Christie's margin of victory was 49%-45%.
Read more about this topic: New Jersey Elections
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