1920 United States presidential election in New Jersey

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1920 United States presidential election in New Jersey
Flag of New Jersey (1896-1965).png
  1916 November 2, 1920 1924  
Turnout81.38% [1]
  Warren G Harding-Harris & Ewing crop.jpg James M. Cox 1920.jpg
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio Ohio
Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt
Electoral vote140
Popular vote611,541256,887
Percentage67.65%28.42%

New Jersey Presidential Election Results by County, 1920.svg
County Results
Harding
  50–60%
  60–70%
  70–80%

The 1920 United States presidential election in New Jersey took place on November 2, 1920. All contiguous 48 states were part of the 1920 United States presidential election. Voters chose 14 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

Contents

New Jersey was won in a landslide by the Republican nominees, Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio and his running mate Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts. Harding and Coolidge defeated the Democratic nominees, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio and his running mate Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York. Also running that year was Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs of Indiana and his running mate Seymour Stedman of Illinois.

Harding carried New Jersey overwhelmingly with 67.65 percent of the vote to Cox's 28.42 percent, a victory margin of 39.23%. [2] This is the highest popular vote percentage ever recorded by any candidate in New Jersey. [3] On the county level map, reflecting the decisiveness of his victory, Harding became the first presidential nominee to sweep all 21 of New Jersey's counties, a feat later accomplished only by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972. [3]

He was the first Republican to ever carry Warren County and Hunterdon County and only the second after William McKinley in 1896 to carry Sussex County, [4] which had been historically hostile to Yankee New England and Democratic ever since the Second Party System. [5] Harding broke sixty percent of the vote in seventeen counties and seventy percent in nine of those.

Debs finished in a distant but fairly solid, for a third-party candidate, third with 3.00 percent.

Like much of the Northeast, New Jersey in this era was a staunchly Republican state, having not given a majority of the vote to a Democratic presidential candidate since 1892. With the deeply unpopular Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson as the backdrop for the 1920 campaign, Warren G. Harding promised a "return to normalcy" that appealed to many voters, while Cox was tied to the policies of the Wilson administration. Harding won nationally in one of the most decisive landslides in American history, and New Jersey, already a fiercely Republican state, went even harder for Harding than the nation, making New Jersey a solid 13 points more Republican than the national average.

As of 2020, this remains the strongest ever performance by any presidential candidate in New Jersey; no candidate has ever exceeded Harding's share of the popular vote or his margin of victory. The elections of 1920 and 1924 would prove to be the Republican Party's high mark in the state of New Jersey, the culmination of an era of Republican dominance in the state beginning in 1896. By 1928, the state would begin trending Democratic when the Democratic Party nominated Al Smith, a New York City native and Roman Catholic of Irish, Italian and German immigrant heritage who appealed greatly to urban New Jersey voters, and beginning in 1932, the state would vote Democratic in all four of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt's elections with the rise of the New Deal Coalition. Hudson County would not vote Republican until 1956.

Results

1920 United States presidential election in New Jersey
PartyCandidateVotesPercentageElectoral votes
Republican Warren G. Harding 611,54167.65%14
Democratic James M. Cox 256,88728.42%0
Socialist Eugene V. Debs 27,1413.00%0
National Prohibition Aaron S. Watkins 4,7340.52%0
Farmer-Labor Parley P. Christensen 2,2000.24%0
Socialist Labor William Wesley Cox 9230.10%0
Single TaxRobert Macauley5170.06%0
Totals903,943100.0%14

Results by county

CountyWarren Gamaliel Harding
Republican
James Middleton Cox
Democratic
Eugene Victor Debs
Socialist
Aaron Sherman Watkins
National Prohibition
Various candidates
Other parties
MarginTotal votes cast [6] [a]
#%#%#%#%#%#%
Atlantic 21,24576.63%5,75320.75%3901.41%2871.04%500.18%15,49255.88%27,725
Bergen 47,51276.26%12,39619.90%1,8492.97%1550.25%3930.63%35,11656.36%62,305
Burlington 17,89868.73%7,53228.92%2290.88%3181.22%640.25%10,36639.81%26,041
Camden 40,77165.67%17,89328.82%2,4673.97%7251.17%2310.37%22,87836.85%62,087
Cape May 5,78570.76%2,19826.89%1071.31%770.94%80.10%3,58743.88%8,175
Cumberland 11,91368.36%4,48725.75%4732.71%5012.87%530.30%7,42642.61%17,427
Essex 116,16870.90%40,97025.00%5,9393.62%1760.11%5950.36%75,19845.89%163,848
Gloucester 11,69366.60%4,86927.73%2251.28%7524.28%180.10%6,82438.87%17,557
Hudson 101,75959.58%62,63736.67%5,4543.19%340.02%9090.53%39,12222.91%170,793
Hunterdon 7,44354.38%6,06744.33%760.56%800.58%200.15%1,37610.05%13,686
Mercer 29,62663.46%15,71333.66%1,1692.50%690.15%1060.23%13,91329.80%46,683
Middlesex 29,33469.70%11,61827.60%8482.01%1390.33%1490.35%17,71642.09%42,088
Monmouth 28,81868.07%12,97530.65%2910.69%1620.38%900.21%15,84337.42%42,336
Morris 20,68671.50%7,25625.08%5782.00%2840.98%1270.44%13,43046.42%28,931
Ocean 6,84074.84%2,13823.39%961.05%530.58%120.13%4,70251.45%9,139
Passaic 42,69272.08%11,87320.05%4,1537.01%1080.18%3990.67%30,81952.04%59,225
Salem 7,63866.50%3,48330.33%980.85%2532.20%130.11%4,15536.18%11,485
Somerset 10,96271.02%4,19227.16%1631.06%800.52%380.25%6,77043.86%15,435
Sussex 5,22458.75%3,51639.54%420.47%971.09%130.15%1,70819.21%8,892
Union 39,40972.57%12,10322.29%2,3534.33%1220.22%3160.58%27,30650.28%54,303
Warren 8,03551.23%7,21846.02%1921.22%2021.29%360.23%8175.21%15,683
Totals611,451 [b] 67.65%256,88728.42%27,192 [b] 3.01%4,674 [b] 0.52%3,6400.40%354,56439.23%903,844

See also

Notes

  1. These totals are the average elector for each slate.
  2. 1 2 3 The total for this candidate differs from the official total by the Manual of the Legislature of New Jersey

References

  1. "Manual of the legislature of New Jersey, 1921". NJ State Library.
  2. "1920 Presidential General Election Results - New Jersey". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  3. 1 2 Thomas, G. Scott; The Pursuit of the White House: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics and History, pp. 439-440 ISBN   0313257957
  4. Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 258-259 ISBN   0786422173
  5. Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 121-134 ISBN   978-0-691-16324-6
  6. New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety Division of Elections; Manual of the Legislature of New Jersey 1921 – Average President and Vice-President Electoral Vote – November 2, 1920