1920 United States presidential election in New Jersey

The 1920 United States presidential election in New Jersey took place on November 2, 1920. All contemporary 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.

1920 United States presidential election in New Jersey

← 1916 November 2, 1920 1924 →
 
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio Ohio
Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt
Electoral vote 14 0
Popular vote 611,541 256,887
Percentage 67.65% 28.42%

County Results
Harding
  50-60%
  60-70%
  70-80%


President before election

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

Elected President

Warren G. Harding
Republican

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%.[1] This is the highest popular vote percentage ever recorded by any candidate in New Jersey.[2] 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.[2]

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,[3] which had been historically hostile to Yankee New England and Democratic ever since the Second Party System.[4] 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.

Results

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1920 United States presidential election in New Jersey
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Republican Warren G. Harding 611,541 67.65% 14
Democratic James M. Cox 256,887 28.42% 0
Socialist Eugene V. Debs 27,141 3.00% 0
National Prohibition Aaron S. Watkins 4,734 0.52% 0
Farmer-Labor Parley P. Christensen 2,200 0.24% 0
Socialist Labor William Wesley Cox 923 0.10% 0
Single Tax Robert Macauley 517 0.06% 0
Totals 903,943 100.0% 14

Results by county

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County Warren Gamaliel Harding
Republican
James Middleton Cox
Democratic
Eugene Victor Debs
Socialist
Aaron Sherman Watkins
National Prohibition
Various candidates
Other parties
Margin Total votes cast[5][a]
# % # % # % # % # % # %
Atlantic 21,245 76.63% 5,753 20.75% 390 1.41% 287 1.04% 50 0.18% 15,492 55.88% 27,725
Bergen 47,512 76.26% 12,396 19.90% 1,849 2.97% 155 0.25% 393 0.63% 35,116 56.36% 62,305
Burlington 17,898 68.73% 7,532 28.92% 229 0.88% 318 1.22% 64 0.25% 10,366 39.81% 26,041
Camden 40,771 65.67% 17,893 28.82% 2,467 3.97% 725 1.17% 231 0.37% 22,878 36.85% 62,087
Cape May 5,785 70.76% 2,198 26.89% 107 1.31% 77 0.94% 8 0.10% 3,587 43.88% 8,175
Cumberland 11,913 68.36% 4,487 25.75% 473 2.71% 501 2.87% 53 0.30% 7,426 42.61% 17,427
Essex 116,168 70.90% 40,970 25.00% 5,939 3.62% 176 0.11% 595 0.36% 75,198 45.89% 163,848
Gloucester 11,693 66.60% 4,869 27.73% 225 1.28% 752 4.28% 18 0.10% 6,824 38.87% 17,557
Hudson 101,759 59.58% 62,637 36.67% 5,454 3.19% 34 0.02% 909 0.53% 39,122 22.91% 170,793
Hunterdon 7,443 54.38% 6,067 44.33% 76 0.56% 80 0.58% 20 0.15% 1,376 10.05% 13,686
Mercer 29,626 63.46% 15,713 33.66% 1,169 2.50% 69 0.15% 106 0.23% 13,913 29.80% 46,683
Middlesex 29,334 69.70% 11,618 27.60% 848 2.01% 139 0.33% 149 0.35% 17,716 42.09% 42,088
Monmouth 28,818 68.07% 12,975 30.65% 291 0.69% 162 0.38% 90 0.21% 15,843 37.42% 42,336
Morris 20,686 71.50% 7,256 25.08% 578 2.00% 284 0.98% 127 0.44% 13,430 46.42% 28,931
Ocean 6,840 74.84% 2,138 23.39% 96 1.05% 53 0.58% 12 0.13% 4,702 51.45% 9,139
Passaic 42,692 72.08% 11,873 20.05% 4,153 7.01% 108 0.18% 399 0.67% 30,819 52.04% 59,225
Salem 7,638 66.50% 3,483 30.33% 98 0.85% 253 2.20% 13 0.11% 4,155 36.18% 11,485
Somerset 10,962 71.02% 4,192 27.16% 163 1.06% 80 0.52% 38 0.25% 6,770 43.86% 15,435
Sussex 5,224 58.75% 3,516 39.54% 42 0.47% 97 1.09% 13 0.15% 1,708 19.21% 8,892
Union 39,409 72.57% 12,103 22.29% 2,353 4.33% 122 0.22% 316 0.58% 27,306 50.28% 54,303
Warren 8,035 51.23% 7,218 46.02% 192 1.22% 202 1.29% 36 0.23% 817 5.21% 15,683
Totals 611,451[b] 67.65% 256,887 28.42% 27,192[b] 3.01% 4,674[b] 0.52% 3,640 0.40% 354,564 39.23% 903,844

See also

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Notes

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

References

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  1. ^ "1920 Presidential General Election Results - New Jersey". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
  2. ^ a b Thomas, G. Scott; The Pursuit of the White House: A Handbook of Presidential Election Statistics and History, pp. 439-440 ISBN 0313257957
  3. ^ Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, pp. 258-259 ISBN 0786422173
  4. ^ Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 121-134 ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6
  5. ^ 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