Woodrow Wilson

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U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), convicted of criminal charges a few weeks ago, is trailing in his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate seat he's held since 1968

If Republican Ted Stevens loses he'll become the fifth incumbent U.S. Senator to lose re-election in a year when a home state candidate is on the national ticket.  It happened twice in 1916, and again in 1964 and 1980.

Despite Gov. Sarah Palin's presence on the GOP ticket in Alaska, Stevens -- convicted on federal corruption charges last month -- trails Democrat Mark Begich by 814 votes, with 35,000 ballots still to be counted --

The first time that happened was in 1916, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson was re-elected to a second term as President.  But in Wilson's home state of New Jersey, Republican Joseph Frelinghuysen, a cousin of U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, ousted Democratic U.S. Sen. James Martine by a 56%-39% margin. And in Indiana, the home state of Wilson's vice president, Thomas Marshall, Republican Harry New unseated incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kern by a 48%-46% margin.

Biotech millionaire John Crowley is still mulling a bid for the Republican nomination for Governor.  If he wins, he'd be the first Governor with no previous public sector experience since Woodrow Wilson moved from college president to Governor in 1910.  But in U.S. Senate races, the lack of political experience is more prevalent: New Jersey sent first-time candidates to the Senate in 1942, 1978, 1982 and 2000.

And if you're an extreme political junkie: if Leonard Lance wins a House seat tomorrow, he'll join a fairly elite group -- New Jersey  Congressmen who have served in both the State Senate and General Assembly.  The last ones were Bob Menendez in 1992, Jim Saxton in 1984, Harold Hollenbeck in 1976, Joseph Maraziti in 1972, and Elijah Hutchinson in 1914.

Former Newark Mayor Jacob Haussling was one of New Jersey's most colorful and tragic political figures.  He was 33-years-old Democrat when he launched his political career in 1888 as an unsuccessful candidate for Essex County Sheriff.  He ran for County Clerk in 1891 and lost to Republican Richard Cooper by just seventeen votes countywide.  He was elected Sheriff in 1893, but lost his 1896 bid for re-election to Republican Henry Doremus.

Ten years later, Haussling sought a political comeback -- and a rematch with Doremus -- on a single issue: his opposition to the "Bishop's Law," a local ordinance that forced saloons to close on Sundays. His "liberality with decency" agenda met with the approval of voters.  Haussling defeated Doremus, who was seeking re-election to his third term as Mayor of Newark.

"Mr. Haussling was no reformer.  Once a reform organization said of him that he ran on a single platform and that plank was 'What'll you have?," according to a published report.  "He never resented the accusation nor was he ashamed of the fact that he could start campaigning at 7 o'clock in the evening, keep going till the next morning, always know one more place where men in receptive mood were to be found, and always leave by the wayside candidates of weaker fiber."

Joseph Biden is the seventh vice presidential nominee from a state that borders New Jersey since William McKinley picked New York Gov. Theodore Roosevelt to run on his ticket in 1900, following the death of Vice President Garrett Hobart, a resident of Paterson. New Jersey hasn’t cast its electoral votes for a border state VP candidate since U.S. Rep. James Sherman (R-Utica) ran with William Howard Taft in 1908. New Yorkers Jack Kemp (1996), Geraldine Ferraro (1984), William Miller, (1964), and Franklin Roosevelt (1920) did not carry New Jersey when they ran with Bob Dole, Walter Mondale, Barry Goldwater and James Cox, respectively. Sherman ran for re-election with Taft in 1912 (he died a few weeks before the election, but Taft decided not to replace him), but New Jersey supported favorite son Woodrow Wilson instead.

The New Jersey Legislature passed the first absentee ballot law after President Woodrow Wilson missed the 1919 general election. Wilson had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on a trip to Colorado the previous September and was unable to return to New Jersey to vote in the gubernatorial and legislative elections. Wilson voted by absentee ballot from the White House in 1920, and moved his official residence to Washington, D.C. after leaving office in March 1921.

New Jersey has not had a serious favorite son presidential candidate since Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, but that could change in the future: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a West Caldwell resident, may want to seek a future Republican presidential nomination. That’s according to New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams, who says “that's what friends who don't want their names mentioned are telling other friends who are telling me the man wants.”

The race for Governor of New Jersey in 1919 centered around the national debate on prohibition, with Democrats running as the wet party and Republicans taking the dry position.  One week before the election, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, overriding Woodrow Wilson's veto.  

The winner was Democrat Edward Edwards, a 56-year-old former banker who had been elected to represent Hudson County in the State Senate two years earlier.  He defeated Republican State Chairman Newton Bugbee by a 49%-46% margin.  Edwards called himself "as wet as the Atlantic Ocean," while Bugbee said he was personally wet but politically dry.  (He even drank a beer at a public event in Clifton to demonstrate his point.

Sometimes politicians get it right, and sometimes politicians -- even 96 years later -- just don't get it. Consider the words of Woodrow Wilson after he took the oath of office as Governor of New Jersey on January 17, 1911:

"Back of all reform lies the method of getting it. Back of the question what you want lies the fundamental quest of all government: how are you going to get it? How are you going to get public servants who will obtain it for you? How are you going to get genuine representatives who will serve your real interests and not their own, or the interests of some special group or body of your fellow citizens whose power is of the few and not of the many?"

One of the closest statewide primaries in New Jersey history was for United States Senator in 1910, one of the last Senate contests before the 17th amendment, which allowed for the direct election of Senators by the voters.

Three Republicans ran in the primary for the seat of John Kean, who was not seeking re-election to a third term: former Governor Franklin Murphy, who served from 1902 to 1905; Edward Stokes, who served as Governor from 1905 to 1908; and Congressman Charles Fowler, the Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee.

Stokes won by 736 votes statewide, a 34.4%-33.8% victory over Fowler.  Murphy finished third with 31.8%, just 3,214 votes behind Stokes.

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.