Thomas Dewey

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. Read More >

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.

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New Jerseyans traditionally support New Yorkers running for President: Garden State voters backed Thomas Dewey, the Governor of New York, when he ran against President Harry Truman in 1948. Dewey didn't carry New Jersey in 1944; he lost to Franklin Roosevelt, a former Governor of New York who carried New Jersey four times. New Jersey even went for a New Yorker over a favorite son: former New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes beat President Woodrow Wilson, a former Governor of New Jersey.

Former New York Governor and New York City Mayor Theodore Roosevelt won New Jersey in 1904, but not against Wilson when he mounted a third-party White House bid in 1912. New Jersey-born Grover Cleveland, who also served as Governor of New York, carried New Jersey three times.

New York Governor Samuel Tilden won New Jersey against Rutherford Hayes in 1876, and former New York Governor Horatio Seymour carried New Jersey in 1868 against General Ulysses S. Grant. Martin Van Buren, who had served as a U.S. Senator from New York, carried New Jersey (by 545 votes) in his 1836 race against William Henry Harrison, but did not when he lost his 1840 rematch.

There are some exceptions: New York Governor Alfred E. Smith lost New Jersey to Herbert Hoover in 1928, and New York Tribune publisher Horace Greeley was defeated in New Jersey by Grant.

Richard Nixon was a New York resident when he carried New Jersey in the 1968 presidential election. He was a New Jersey resident at the time of his death.

For candidates from the other 49 states, including John McCain, John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Sam Brownback, Newt Gingrich, Wesley Clark and Mike Huckabee, the historical precedent is good and bad.

The only Arizonan to run nationally, Senator Barry Goldwater, lost New Jersey by 903,828 votes. But most presidential candidates from Massachusetts win in the Garden State: Senator Kerry (2004) and John F. Kennedy (1960), and former Governor Calvin Coolidge (1924). John Quincy Adams, who served the Bay State as a U.S. Senator, lost New Jersey to Tennesse Senator Andrew Jackson in 1824, but carried it in his 1828 re-election loss to Jackson. Governor Michael Dukakis lost the state in 1988.

Presidential candidates from Illinois don't do well in New Jersey: Governor Adlai Stevenson lost it twice, in 1952 and 1956; so did former Congressman Abraham Lincoln, in 1860 and 1864.

Candidates from Kansas (Governor Alfred Landon in 1936 and Senator Robert Dole in 1996) don't win New Jersey; neither did the one from Georgia: Jimmy Carter in 1976. But Arkansians do fine: Bill Clinton won New Jersey twice.

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