16 0 56.2% 42.6% | 1,743,192 1,320,352 Start date November 8, 1988 | |
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The 1988 United States presidential election in New Jersey took place on November 8, 1988. All 50 states and the District of Columbia, were part of the 1988 United States presidential election. New Jersey voters chose 16 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the President and Vice President.
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New Jersey was won by incumbent Republican Vice President George H. W. Bush of Texas, who was running against Democratic Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. Bush ran with Indiana Senator Dan Quayle while Dukakis ran with Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen.
Bush carried New Jersey with 56.24% of the vote, while Dukakis received 42.60%, a 13.64% margin of victory.
New Jersey weighed in for this election as almost 6% more Republican than the national average.
Bush won 18 of New Jersey's 21 counties, with Dukakis only winning the heavily Democratic counties of Mercer County, Essex County, and Hudson County. This remains the last election in which a Republican presidential candidate has won Union County, Middlesex County, Burlington County, Camden County, Cumberland County, and Atlantic County. All of these counties would become reliably Democratic in every election that has followed as suburban voters shifted away from the GOP in the 1990s. Consequently, this would also be the last time that New Jersey as a whole would cast its electoral votes for a Republican presidential nominee, and New Jersey would subsequently become regarded as a solid blue state in modern elections.
Partisan background
The presidential election of 1988 was a very partisan election for New Jersey, with more than 99% of the electorate voting for either the Democratic or Republican parties, though a total of 11 parties did appear on the ballot.
Republican victory
Bush won the election in New Jersey with a strong 13.6 point margin. This is the most recent presidential election where New Jersey sent Republican electors to the Electoral College. The election results in New Jersey are reflective of a nationwide political re-consolidation of base for the Republican Party, which took place in the through the 1980s. Through the passage of some very controversial economic programs, spearheaded by then President Ronald Reagan (called, collectively, "Reaganomics"), the mid-to-late 1980's saw a period of economic growth and stability. The hallmark for Reaganomics was, in part, the wide-scale deregulation of corporate interests, and tax cuts for the wealthy.
Dukakis ran on a notably socially liberal agenda, and advocated for higher economic regulation and environmental protection. Bush, alternatively, ran on a campaign of continuing the social and economic policies of former President Reagan - which gained him much support with social conservatives and people living in rural areas, who largely associated the Republican Party with the economic growth of the 1980s. Additionally, while the economic programs passed under Reagan, and furthered under Bush and Clinton, may have boosted the economy for a brief period, they are criticized by many analysts as "setting the stage" for economic troubles in the United State after 2007, such as the Great Recession.