Jimmy Carter

The outcome of the 2009 campaign for Governor of New Jersey is not historically significant to Barack Obama's presidency. It is almost twice as likely that New Jerseyans elect a governor who is not a member of the president's party.  Indeed, the party of the incumbent president is 15-26 in New Jersey gubernatorial races since a Democrat won in Abraham Lincoln's mid-term election.

The last five gubernatorial elections went that way: Republicans lost in 1989 (George H.W. Bush), 2001 and 2005 (George W. Bush), and Democrats lost in 1993 and 1997 (Bill Clinton). But in the seven contests before that, the party of the sitting president went 6-1: Republicans won in 1969 (Richard Nixon), 1981, and 1985 (Ronald Reagan), and Democrats won in 1961 (John Kennedy), 1965 (Lyndon Johnson), and 1977 (Jimmy Carter); Republicans lost in 1973, after the incumbent was defeated in the primary and in an election that was held under the backdrop of the Watergate scandal.

None those twelve campaigns influenced the outcomes of the next presidential campaign, either nationally or in pursuit of New Jersey's electoral votes - although the 1973 results were a harbinger of the 1974 Democratic landslide.  By 1976, New Jersey was supporting a Republican presidential candidate.

Democrats won both gubernatorial elections held during Dwight Eisenhower's presidency, and Republicans won both governors' races held while Harry Truman was president.  During the four campaigns for governor that occurred during Franklin Roosevelt's tenure in the White House, Democrats won two (1937 and 1940) and lost two (1934 and 1943).  Eisenhower carried New Jersey twice, and Roosevelt won the state four times.

A poll of New Jersey voters taken three weeks before the 1968 presidential election had independent George Wallace with 14% of the vote, with Richard Nixon leading Hubert Humphrey by a 43%-38% margin.  Both parties agreed that Wallace was taking more votes from the Democrats than the Republicans. 

A Gallup poll conducted outside two New Jersey auto plants had Wallace getting 73% of the vote among 500 members of the United Auto Workers Union.  "Listen, the men in the plants want to zap the Negros by voting for Wallace.  It's that simple.  And I don't see how anyone can stop them," a UAW official told the New York Times in a quote that 41 years later appears rather incredible.

On Election Day, Nixon carried New Jersey by 61,261 votes, 46%-44%.  Wallace took 9%, less than where he was polling, receiving 262,187 votes.

Former Vice President Al Gore will be in New Jersey today, lending a hand to Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election by addressing an annual meeting of Democrats in Atlantic City.  Gore becomes the second of the eight living Democratic nominees for President to stump for Corzine; Barack Obama was in the state last July.  Democrats expect two others to be in New Jersey over the next few weeks: former President Bill Clinton, and U.S. Sen. John Kerry.  There are no plans for any of the other four onetime Democratic standard bearers to campaign for Corzine: George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.

There are four living Republican presidential candidates.  It's almost certain that former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush will not campaigning for GOP gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie.  There is no word if Bob Dole or John McCain will be visiting New Jersey before November.

Gore also puts in checkmark under the living former Vice Presidents column. It seems certain that Christie won't ask Dick Cheney to come to New Jersey this fall - the heavy traffic on Route 1 notwithstanding. There are no apparent invitations for Mondale or Dan Quayle to stump for Corzine or Christie, respectively.

Vice President Joseph Biden appeared at a Corzine rally on the night of the Democratic primary.

Of the other five living former VP candidates, three almost certainly will not be invited: Sarah Palin, John Edwards, and Joseph Lieberman.  Sargent Shriver has health issues and is no longer making public appearances. That leaves Geraldine Ferraro, and there is a decent chance the Corzine campaign won't want her.

Barack Obama's visit to New Jersey marks the fourth time a President has come to campaign for the re-election of an incumbent Governor. 

Bill Clinton stumped for Jim Florio in 1993, Ronald Reagan for Thomas Kean in 1985, and Jimmy Carter for Brendan Byrne in 1977.  Lyndon Johnson did not visit New Jersey when Richard Hughes ran for re-election in 1965, although the First Lady did join Hughes for a tour of a Head Start center in Newark.  And Richard Nixon did not come to New Jersey in support of William Cahill, who lost the Republican primary to a White House ally, U.S. Rep. Charles Sandman.

One candidate for the Comeback of the Year Award will be James Biggs, who won 63% of the vote yesterday in a special election for Mayor of Island Heights (pop. 1,877).  The 67-year-old Biggs was first elected Mayor in 1974, at age 32, and gave up the job four years later to run for Congress.

In 1978, Democrat William Hughes was a two-term Congressman from a Republican district.  A 41-year-old former Assistant Prosecutor from Cape May County, ousted four-term incumbent Charles Sandman, by a 57%-41% margin in the 1974 Watergate landslide - one year after Sandman beat incumbent William Cahill in the Republican gubernatorial primary and then lost the general election by 721,328 votes.

Republicans believed they would win the seat back in 1976 with an exceptionally strong candidate, five-term Assembly Assistant Minority Leader James Hurley (R-Millville).  But Hughes proved to be a stronger incumbent than Republicans imagined, and Hurley turned out to be a weak general election candidate.  Hughes beat Hurly 68%-32%, running twenty percentage points ahead of the Democratic presidential candidate.

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.

Elizabeth Alexander, who was commissioned to write and deliver an original poem for President Barack Obama’s inauguration today, is the sister of Mark Alexander, a Seton Hall University law professor who ran Obama’s primary campaign in New Jersey.   They are the children of Clifford Alexander, who served as a White House aide under Lyndon Johnson and as U.S. Secretary of the Army under Jimmy Carter. 

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.

A quick look at several old New Jersey presidential polls taken (mostly) in September:

Former President Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this evening: Getty Images Photo
When former president Jimmy Carter took the stage for a brief appearance at the Democratic National Convention, most delegates leapt to their feet and cheered.

Noticeably silent and still were a few Jewish delegates from New Jersey, who stayed in their seats.

Although at least two of them have a reputation as being quite liberal, they had a problem with Carter’s views on Israel, and most notably the book he penned on the subject: Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.