Yankees, Phillies and Governors

The Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees have met in a Word Series only once before: in 1950.  The Governor of New Jersey was Alfred Driscoll, a Republican from Haddonfield and a serious Phillies fan. There were no statewide elections that year, and thirteen Congressmen running for re-election won; the GOP held an open seat in the old seventh district (Bergen County in those days) with 70% of the vote.

The Phillies have only been in the World Series during one New Jersey gubernatorial election year: 1993, when Republican Christine Todd Whitman ousted incumbent James Florio, a Camden County Democrat. 

New Jersey has elected Governors eleven times in a year when the Yankees won the World Series.  Democrats have won in seven of those years, and the Republicans in four.  In those years, when the Democrats win the governorship, the Yankees win the World Series 57% of the time; when the GOP elects a Governor, the Yankees are world champions 75% of the time.

The only living Governor of New Jersey to have won in a Yankees world championship year is Brendan Byrne, a Democrat who was re-elected in 1977.  The Yankees lost the World Series when Thomas Kean (1981) and James E. McGreevey (2001) ran.

The Yankees have been in the World Series only three times when a Governor of New Jersey is seeking re-election; they won under two incumbents, Driscoll (1949) and Byrne (1977), and lost to the Milwaukee Braves when Robert Meyner sought a second term in 1957.