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1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey

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1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey

← 1924 November 6, 1928 1932 →
 
Nominee Herbert Hoover Al Smith
Party Republican Democratic
Home state California New York
Running mate Charles Curtis Joseph T. Robinson
Electoral vote 14 0
Popular vote 926,050 616,517
Percentage 59.77% 39.79%

County Results

President before election

Calvin Coolidge
Republican

Elected President

Herbert Hoover
Republican

The 1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey took place on November 6, 1928. All contemporary 48 states were part of the 1928 United States presidential election. Voters chose 14 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

New Jersey was won by the Republican nominees, former Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California and his running mate Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas. Hoover and Curtis defeated the Democratic nominees, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York and his running mate Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas.

Hoover carried New Jersey with 59.77 percent of the vote to Smith's 39.79 percent, a victory margin of 19.98 percentage points.[1] Finishing in a distant third was the Socialist Party candidate Norman Thomas, with only 0.32 percent.

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. As Herbert Hoover was winning a third consecutive nationwide Republican landslide amidst the economic boom and social good feelings of the Roaring Twenties under popular Republican leadership, New Jersey easily remained in the Republican column.

However Smith for his part did make dramatic gains for the Democratic Party in New Jersey, laying the groundwork for ultimately turning the state Democratic just four years later in 1932. In 1920, Republican Warren G. Harding had carried the state over Democrat James M. Cox by a massive 68–28 margin. In 1924, southern Democrat John W. Davis had received only 27 percent of the vote in the state to Republican Calvin Coolidge's 62 percent. Even as Hoover won a third nationwide Republican landslide, New Jersey swung 15 points toward the Democrats over the previous 1920s GOP performances in the state, with Smith taking nearly 40 percent of the statewide vote.

On the county level map, reflecting the decisiveness of his victory, Hoover won 20 of the state's 21 counties. Despite losing ground overall at the state level, Hoover made gains in the western parts of the state where the reaction to Catholicism was hostility.[2] His strongest county win was in rural Salem County by the Delaware border, where he broke 80% of the vote, a dramatic improvement over the sixty percent vote shares won in that county by Republicans in 1920 and 1924.

However, Al Smith, a New York City native, and Roman Catholic of Irish, Italian and German immigrant heritage, appealed greatly to urban areas populated by ethnic immigrant communities, laying the groundwork for a new urban Democratic coalition. Urban parts of New Jersey, particularly in North Jersey which shared close ties with New York City, swung in Smith's favor. Essex County, home to Newark, swung Democratic, as did Middlesex, Passaic, Union, Bergen, and Mercer counties.

Nevertheless, by far the greatest Democratic swing occurred in heavily populated Hudson County, part of the New York City metro area, and populated by many urban ethnic Catholic immigrant communities. Despite losing every other county in the state, Al Smith won Hudson County with a commanding majority of more than 60% of the vote. This mirrored the results in the nearby 5 boroughs of New York City right across the Hudson River, all of which swung from voting Republican in 1920 and 1924 to voting decisively Democratic in 1928.

While New Jersey remained Republican in 1928, its overall trend was Democratic, going from being 13% more Republican than the nation in 1920 to 10% more Republican than the nation in 1924 to only 2.56% more Republican than the nation in 1928, foreshadowing New Jersey's political future as being a closely divided swing state with only a slight Republican lean for much of the 20th century until New Jersey ultimately became a solidly Democratic state in the 1990s.

Results

[edit]
1928 United States presidential election in New Jersey
Party Candidate Votes Percentage Electoral votes
Republican Herbert Hoover 926,050 59.77% 14
Democratic Alfred E. Smith 616,517 39.79% 0
Socialist Norman Thomas 4,897 0.32% 0
Workers William Z. Foster 1,257 0.08% 0
Socialist Labor Verne L. Reynolds 500 0.03% 0
National Prohibition William Varney 160 0.01% 0
Totals 1,549,381 100.0% 14

Results by county

[edit]
County Herbert Clark Hoover[3]
Republican
Alfred Emmanuel Smith[3]
Democratic
Norman Mattoon Thomas[3]
Socialist
William Z. Foster[3]
Workers
Various candidates[3]
Other parties
Margin Total votes cast
# % # % # % # % # % # %
Atlantic 37,238 65.95% 19,152 33.92% 47 0.08% 18 0.03% 10 0.02% 18,086 32.03% 56,465
Bergen 89,105 63.62% 50,373 35.96% 443 0.32% 89 0.06% 57 0.04% 38,732 27.65% 140,067
Burlington 30,224 73.19% 10,972 26.57% 65 0.16% 14 0.03% 19 0.05% 19,252 46.62% 41,294
Camden 75,517 69.78% 32,151 29.71% 473 0.44% 10 0.01% 77 0.07% 43,366 40.07% 108,228
Cape May 12,207 76.40% 3,731 23.35% 29 0.18% 4 0.03% 7 0.04% 8,476 53.05% 15,978
Cumberland 23,921 77.92% 6,694 21.81% 54 0.18% 11 0.04% 19 0.06% 17,227 56.12% 30,699
Essex 168,856 58.53% 118,268 40.99% 1,080 0.37% 237 0.08% 73 0.03% 50,588 17.53% 288,514
Gloucester 25,627 79.34% 6,594 20.41% 57 0.18% 3 0.01% 21 0.07% 19,033 58.92% 32,302
Hudson 99,972 39.35% 153,009 60.22% 829 0.33% 199 0.08% 62 0.02% -53,037 -20.87% 254,071
Hunterdon 11,820 73.53% 4,225 26.28% 11 0.07% 9 0.06% 11 0.07% 7,595 47.24% 16,076
Mercer 41,056 59.21% 27,908 40.25% 231 0.33% 95 0.14% 48 0.07% 13,148 18.96% 69,338
Middlesex 38,714 52.35% 34,908 47.20% 187 0.25% 116 0.16% 25 0.03% 3,806 5.15% 73,950
Monmouth 47,046 65.84% 24,286 33.99% 82 0.11% 13 0.02% 27 0.04% 22,760 31.85% 71,454
Morris 33,189 68.35% 15,188 31.28% 145 0.30% 13 0.03% 24 0.05% 18,001 37.07% 48,559
Ocean 12,301 73.19% 4,452 26.49% 42 0.25% 8 0.05% 4 0.02% 7,849 46.70% 16,807
Passaic 57,708 54.53% 47,167 44.57% 656 0.62% 216 0.20% 87 0.08% 10,541 9.96% 105,834
Salem 12,323 80.23% 3,001 19.54% 22 0.14% 1 0.01% 13 0.08% 9,322 60.69% 15,360
Somerset 16,386 66.66% 8,120 33.03% 52 0.21% 15 0.06% 7 0.03% 8,266 33.63% 24,580
Sussex 8,964 74.50% 3,043 25.29% 17 0.14% 2 0.02% 6 0.05% 5,921 49.21% 12,032
Union 68,119 64.21% 37,476 35.32% 309 0.29% 161 0.15% 27 0.03% 30,643 28.88% 106,092
Warren 14,992 73.15% 5,444 26.56% 35 0.17% 10 0.05% 14 0.07% 9,548 46.59% 20,495
Totals 925,285 59.88% 616,162 39.88% 4,866 0.31% 1,244 0.08% 638 0.04% 309,123 20.01% 1,545,195

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "1928 Presidential General Election Results – New Jersey". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 3, 2014.
  2. ^ Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, p. 42 ISBN 978-0-691-16324-6
  3. ^ a b c d e Our Campaigns; NJ US President Race, November 06, 1928