16 0 50.3% 45.9% | 981,124 895,455 Start date November 2, 1948 | |
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The 1948 United States presidential election in New Jersey took place on November 2, 1948. All contemporary 48 states, were part of the 1948 United States presidential election. New Jersey voters chose 16 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the President and Vice President.
New Jersey was won by the Republican nominees, former Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and his running mate Governor Earl Warren of California. Dewey and Warren defeated the Democratic nominees, incumbent President Harry S. Truman of Missouri and his running mate Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky.
Also in the running was the Progressive Party candidate, former Democratic Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who ran with former Senator Glen H. Taylor of Idaho.
Dewey carried New Jersey with 50.33% of the vote to Truman's 45.93%, a margin of 4.39%. Wallace came in a distant third with 2.19%.
Despite the closeness of the statewide result, Dewey won 15 of the state's 21 counties, while Truman won 6. However Truman won several of the most heavily populated urban counties in the state, taking over 60% of the vote in Hudson County, winning majorities in Mercer County, Camden County, and Middlesex County, and winning with a plurality in Passaic County. Truman also won a majority in rural Salem County in the far south of the state. However Dewey won majorities in several heavily populated counties, including Bergen County, Morris County, Union County, Monmouth County, and Ocean County, also narrowly winning Essex County with a plurality, along with winning most of the state's rural counties. Wallace for his part performed most strongly in North Jersey, particularly in Essex, Union, and Passaic Counties.
New Jersey in this era was usually a swing state with a Republican lean, and its results in 1948 adhered to that pattern. Democrat Franklin Roosevelt had won New Jersey in all 4 of his decisive nationwide victories in the 1930s and 1940s, but with the exception of his 1936 landslide, always by very narrow margins. As Truman narrowly defeated Dewey nationally in an upset victory, Dewey's narrow victory in New Jersey made the state almost 9% more Republican than the national average.