SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — New Jersey looked more like a swing state in this year’s election than a Democratic stronghold. The presidential race was closer than just about any poll predicted. In fact, President-elect Donald Trump had the best performance of any Republican presidential candidate in the state in the last 30 years.
So, what happened?
Trump lost by five points — rather than 15 in 2020 — and he gained ground with Black and Hispanic voters throughout the state.
“It turns out that [Kamala] Harris did worse across the board, in every county in the state, than she and Joe Biden did in 2020,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.
The last time a margin was this close in New Jersey was in 1992. Bill Clinton won the state with about a 2% margin over George H. W. Bush. John Kerry had only about a 6% margin over George W. Bush in 2004.
Prior to Clinton, New Jersey consistently voted red from 1968 to 1988.
Rasmussen said the economic headwinds of an unpopular Biden administration provided enough fuel to change some 2024 voters’ minds.
“It turns out that they are more concerned right now about issues like inflation, kitchen-table issues, finance issues, having money in their pocket, than they are about culture issues — than they are about what was said at Madison Square Garden,” he said, referencing a joke made by a comedian at a Trump rally in which he referred to Puerto Rico as garbage.
Rasmussen said New Jersey Democrats need to get granular to see where exactly they lost support and why. For Republicans, he said it will be interesting to see who rises to the top in the primary for governor next year, as a Trump endorsement would likely carry weight.