Woodrow Wilson’s status as the last Garden Stater to win the presidency is unaffected by Chris Christie’s abject 2024 presidential campaign and his one-state approach.
In 2020, two New Jerseyans entered the race: former Representative John Delaney (D-Maryland) withdrawn on January 30, 2020, and U.S. Senator Cory Booker withdrew on January 13, 2019. After attending Bergen Catholic High School and receiving a scholarship from his father’s union, IBEW Local 164 in Paramus, Delaney attended college. He was born and raised in Wood-Ridge.
After losing badly in the New Hampshire GOP primary, Christie decided to get out of the 2016 presidential race. With 7.4% of the vote, he came in sixth place.
In 1996 and 2000, Steve Forbes, the publisher of a magazine in New Jersey, ran for the Republican presidential nomination. Forbes won primaries in Delaware and Arizona the week after finishing third in the 1996 New Hampshire primary, but those were the only wins he made.
In 2000, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley challenged Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic presidential nomination. That year, Bradley did not win any primaries.
Governor Robert Meyner, the front-runner, was promised New Jersey’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention in 1960. Although he never officially entered the race, Meyner had expressed interest in becoming president. He had hoped that delegates would consider him as their choice if the convention couldn’t decide between Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy.
Two years after being elected governor, Wilson won in 1912.
In those days, primaries were rare, and delegates were not always bound by convention rules. Wilson prevailed in competitions held in South Dakota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In Illinois, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Maryland, and California, Clark emerged victorious as the Speaker of the House.
After a stalemate convention in Baltimore reduced the field to Wilson and Clark, he secured the Democratic nominee on the 46th ballot. Democrats had to get two-thirds of the vote to nominate a presidential candidate back then. Wilson had dominated the first 29 ballots under Clark’s leadership.
Wilson was also the final presidential candidate from New Jersey to advance past the New Jersey primary.
In Old Fuss and Feathers, General Winfield Scott, who served as the U.S. Army’s Commanding General from 1841 to 1861, spent almost thirty years residing in Elizabeth. After unsuccessfully running for president in 1844 and 1848, he was the Whig Party’s nominee in 1852. Franklin Pierce, a Democrat, won New Jersey by eight points.
