Ronald Reagan narrowly edges out Bill Clinton as New Jerseyans’ favorite president, according to a Monmouth University/Gannett poll released this morning.

Overall, 24% of New Jerseyans picked Reagan as their favorite president, while 22% picked Clinton -- a difference within the poll's margin of error.  John F. Kennedy comes in third with 11%, followed by Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama tied in fourth place at 7%, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt in sixth place with 5%. George Washington, whose birthday this holiday was created to commemorate in 1880, is tied with Harry Truman at 3%, while Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush bring up the rear of New Jerseyans’ top 10 a 2% each. 

Neither of the Garden State’s two presidents – Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson – made the list.

If you’re reading this from work today, you’re in the same boat as the majority of state residents.  Just 38% of the state’s workforce gets today off with pay, although 70% of public sector workers do. 

The Monmouth University Polling Institute surveyed 803 adult New Jersey residents between January 27-31, producing a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5%.

If Steve Lonegan wins election as Governor, he might be the first conservative Republican to win a statewide election in New Jersey since Albert Hawkes ousted incumbent William Smathers in the 1942 U.S. Senate race. Hawkes served as President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce before running for the Senate - his first bid for public office.

Since then, Republican statewide winners have been considered moderates: Governors Alfred Driscoll, William Cahill, Thomas Kean and Christine Todd Whitman; and U.S. Senators Robert Hendrickson, Alexander Smith, and Clifford Case.  Other Republicans widely viewed as conservatives, including Charles Sandman, Jeffrey Bell, and Bret Schundler, were unsuccessful general election candidates.

Since 1824, when direct elections began, nine American Presidents never carried New Jersey: Martin Van Buren, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush.  Of the ten best Presidents ranked by historians in a 2009 C-Span poll, New Jersey cast a majority of its electoral votes for all but Lincoln and Truman, and voted to support six of the worst: James Buchanan, William Henry Harrison, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Pierce, and Hayes.

One of the ten best Presidents was a New Jerseyan, Woodrow Wilson, who served as Governor from 1911 to 1913.  Wilson carried New Jersey in his first campaign, but lost it when he ran for re-election in 1916.  Before the direct election of Presidents, New Jersey supported James Madison for President in 1808, but not when Madison ran for a second term in 1812.

Despite major endorsements from prominent Democrats like former New Jersey Secretary of State Joan Haberle and her daughter, Dawn, and support from Alfredo Gutierrez, the owner of Xtra Supermarket in Newark, John McCain has fallen far behind Barack Obama in the race for New Jersey's fifteen electoral votes.  A Quinnipiac University poll released this morning has Obama with a 23-point lead, 59%-36%, while a new Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll shows similar numbers: Obama 55%, McCain 38%.

So much for the legacy of Herbert Lehman, one of the first Wall Street millionaires to run for public office and the son of the man who founded the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers. Lehman served as Finance Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and was elected Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1928 running on a ticket with gubernatorial candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt.

When Roosevelt ran for President in 1932, Lehman ran for Governor and beat U.S. Attorney Wild Bill Donovan, who would later become the top American spymaster during World War II, by a 57%-39% margin. Lehman was re-elected in 1934, defeating New York City master builder Robert Moses (58%-37%), and again in 1936 and 1938. In his last run for Governor, he narrowly won re-election, 50%-49%, over U.S. Attorney Thomas Dewey.

If Barack Obama wins New Jersey in November, he will become the first candidate to lose the state's presidential primary and still win electoral votes in the general since 1932.  Obama lost the February 5 New Jersey primary to Hillary Clinton by a 54%-44% margin.

In 1932, Alfred E. Smith won the New Jersey Democratic presidential preference primary by a 62%-38% margin over the Governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Smith, the former Governor of New York, had been the Democratic nominee for President in 1928.  In the general, Roosevelt narrowly won New Jersey, 50%-48%, against incumbent Herbert Hoover.

Judge Steven Perskie, who wrote the legislation that brought casino gambling to Atlantic City in the 1970’s and perhaps one of the smartest people to serve in the New Jersey Legislature, turns 63 today. He was elected to the State Assembly in 1971, at age 26 – part of a Democratic team that toppled the powerful Atlantic County Republican machine. In that race, Joseph McGahn, a physician and the first Democrat to serve as Mayor of Absecon, defeated the legendary Frank “Hap”Farley, the Atlantic GOP boss and a 41-year veteran of the Senate, by nearly 12,000 votes. Perkie and his running mate, 27-year-old attorney James Colasurdo, defeated Republican incumbent Samuel Curcio (the father of Atlantic County Freeholder James Curcio), and Howard Haneman, who was seeking an open seat created by the retirement of Albert Smith, a former Assembly Speaker.