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 County Results
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The1916 United States presidential election in New Jersey took place onNovember7,1916. All contemporary 48 states were part of the1916 United States presidential election. Voters chose 14 electors to theElectoral College, which selected thepresident andvice president.
New Jersey was won by theRepublican nominees,U.S. Supreme Court JusticeCharles Evans Hughes ofNew York and his running mate, former Vice PresidentCharles W. Fairbanks ofIndiana. Hughes and Fairbanks defeated theDemocratic nominees, incumbentPresidentWoodrow Wilson ofNew Jersey and his running mate incumbentVice PresidentThomas R. Marshall ofIndiana.
Hughes carried New Jersey decisively with 54.40 percent of the vote to Wilson's 42.68 percent, a victory margin of 11.72 points.[1] Coming in a distant third wasSocialist candidateAllan L. Benson, who took 2.10 percent.
Like much of theNortheast, New Jersey in this era was a staunchly Republican state, having not given a majority of the vote to a Democratic presidential candidate since1892. However, in1912, Woodrow Wilson, then the sittingGovernor of New Jersey, had won the state's electoral votes, but with a plurality of only 41 percent in a 3-way race against a split Republican field, with former Republican PresidentTheodore Roosevelt running as athird party candidate against incumbent Republican PresidentWilliam Howard Taft. However, with the Republican base re-united behind Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, Wilson lost his home state to the GOP by a decisive 12-point margin in a head-to-head match-up, despite having served as the state's governor.
On the county-level map, reflecting his comfortable victory, Hughes carried 17 of the state's 21 counties, breaking sixty percent of the vote in three. Wilson's only significant win was urbanHudson County, while he also won the three rural counties in westernNorth Jersey,Warren,Sussex, andHunterdon, which had long been non-Yankee Democratic enclaves in the otherwise Republican Northeast.[2] Warren and Hunterdon had never voted Republican as of 1916 – and Sussex only forWilliam McKinley in 1896 – yet Wilson would prove the last Democrat to win Sussex County untilLyndon Johnson in 1964.[3]
Despite being Wilson's home state, New Jersey registered as the second most Republican state in the nation in terms of vote share afterVermont and the fourth most Republican state in the nation in terms of margin, the state being about 15 points more Republican than the national average.[4]Woodrow Wilson is one of 4 presidents to lose his home state on a successful presidential bid, which also occurred in 1844, 1968, and 2016. This was the first time a Democrat won without the state since 1844.
| 1916 United States presidential election in New Jersey | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | Percentage | Electoral votes | |
| Republican | Charles Evans Hughes | 268,982 | 54.40% | 14 | |
| Democratic | Woodrow Wilson (incumbent) | 211,018 | 42.68% | 0 | |
| Socialist | Allan L. Benson | 10,405 | 2.10% | 0 | |
| Prohibition | Frank Hanly | 3,182 | 0.64% | 0 | |
| Socialist Labor | Arthur E. Reimer | 855 | 0.17% | 0 | |
| Totals | 494,442 | 100.0% | 14 | ||
| County | Charles Evans Hughes Republican | Thomas Woodrow Wilson Democratic | Allan Louis Benson Socialist | James Franklin Hanly Prohibition | Arthur Elmer Reimer Socialist Labor | Margin | Total votes cast[5] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | ||
| Atlantic | 9,713 | 62.88% | 5,467 | 35.39% | 122 | 0.79% | 133 | 0.86% | 12 | 0.08% | 4,246 | 27.49% | 15,447 |
| Bergen | 18,494 | 60.05% | 11,530 | 37.44% | 595 | 1.93% | 113 | 0.37% | 65 | 0.21% | 6,964 | 22.61% | 30,797 |
| Burlington | 8,803 | 56.36% | 6,535 | 41.84% | 115 | 0.74% | 158 | 1.01% | 9 | 0.06% | 2,268 | 14.52% | 15,620 |
| Camden | 18,318 | 54.17% | 14,010 | 41.43% | 1,101 | 3.26% | 350 | 1.03% | 38 | 0.11% | 4,308 | 12.74% | 33,817 |
| Cape May | 2,904 | 56.85% | 2,097 | 41.05% | 37 | 0.72% | 66 | 1.29% | 4 | 0.08% | 807 | 15.80% | 5,108 |
| Cumberland | 5,692 | 52.14% | 4,573 | 41.89% | 308 | 2.82% | 323 | 2.96% | 21 | 0.19% | 1,119 | 10.25% | 10,917 |
| Essex | 54,167 | 59.24% | 34,596 | 37.84% | 2,280 | 2.49% | 184 | 0.20% | 212 | 0.23% | 19,571 | 21.40% | 91,439 |
| Gloucester | 5,352 | 54.82% | 3,745 | 38.36% | 118 | 1.21% | 538 | 5.51% | 9 | 0.09% | 1,607 | 16.46% | 9,762 |
| Hudson | 42,518 | 47.66% | 44,663 | 50.07% | 1,811 | 2.03% | 73 | 0.08% | 140 | 0.16% | -2,145 | -2.40% | 89,205 |
| Hunterdon | 3,408 | 42.69% | 4,462 | 55.89% | 45 | 0.56% | 65 | 0.81% | 4 | 0.05% | -1,054 | -13.20% | 7,984 |
| Mercer | 14,213 | 55.75% | 10,621 | 41.66% | 460 | 1.80% | 154 | 0.60% | 45 | 0.18% | 3,592 | 14.09% | 25,493 |
| Middlesex | 11,851 | 53.51% | 9,975 | 45.04% | 185 | 0.84% | 103 | 0.47% | 32 | 0.14% | 1,876 | 8.47% | 22,146 |
| Monmouth | 11,624 | 51.46% | 10,729 | 47.49% | 103 | 0.46% | 120 | 0.53% | 14 | 0.06% | 895 | 3.96% | 22,590 |
| Morris | 8,530 | 54.23% | 6,798 | 43.22% | 214 | 1.36% | 172 | 1.09% | 14 | 0.09% | 1,732 | 11.01% | 15,728 |
| Ocean | 3,386 | 61.26% | 2,076 | 37.56% | 31 | 0.56% | 28 | 0.51% | 6 | 0.11% | 1,310 | 23.70% | 5,527 |
| Passaic | 18,754 | 55.32% | 13,340 | 39.35% | 1,561 | 4.60% | 128 | 0.38% | 121 | 0.36% | 5,414 | 15.97% | 33,904 |
| Salem | 4,080 | 53.77% | 3,353 | 44.19% | 68 | 0.90% | 84 | 1.11% | 3 | 0.04% | 727 | 9.58% | 7,588 |
| Somerset | 4,707 | 55.70% | 3,653 | 43.23% | 34 | 0.40% | 50 | 0.59% | 7 | 0.08% | 1,054 | 12.47% | 8,451 |
| Sussex | 2,461 | 43.38% | 3,093 | 54.52% | 70 | 1.23% | 42 | 0.74% | 7 | 0.12% | -632 | -11.14% | 5,673 |
| Union | 16,705 | 59.21% | 10,328 | 36.61% | 1,040 | 3.69% | 97 | 0.34% | 44 | 0.16% | 6,377 | 22.60% | 28,214 |
| Warren | 3,302 | 36.56% | 5,374 | 59.50% | 107 | 1.18% | 201 | 2.23% | 48 | 0.53% | -2,072 | -22.94% | 9,032 |
| Totals | 268,982 | 54.40% | 211,018 | 42.68% | 10,405 | 2.10% | 3,182 | 0.64% | 855 | 0.17% | 57,964 | 11.72% | 494,442 |
State and district results of the1916 United States presidential election | ||
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