New Jersey 1960 Election

[Sam Smith]

New Jersey was 49% white catholic at that time.
Catholics voted about 78% for JFk & 22% for Nixon.
Why was the race so close?
What was the white protestant population of New Jersey in the 60s?
Maybe 35% or less?

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

How did Kennedy do in the Atlantic City area? Boardwalk Empire comes to mind because I wonder if a substantial number of New Jersey Catholics were Republican as a remnant of the Enoch Johnson machine.

[EastAnglianLefty]

In the 1960s, Republicans were the first to nominate black candidates in the Newark area, so I wonder if they were more Republican in NJ than nationally at the time?

[TDAS04]

Well, NJ was a Republican state at the time.  Dewey carried it, and look at Ike's whopping margins (30 points in 1956)!  JFK managed to barely carry it due to the Catholic appeal.

[Sam Smith]

How did Kennedy do in the Atlantic City area? Boardwalk Empire comes to mind because I wonder if a substantial number of New Jersey Catholics were Republican as a remnant of the Enoch Johnson machine.

Nixon won Atlantic City (County) 50.88% vs 46.94%.

[Calthrina950]

Well, NJ was a Republican state at the time.  Dewey carried it, and look at Ike's whopping margins (30 points in 1956)!  JFK managed to barely carry it due to the Catholic appeal.

And just four years later, Lyndon Johnson was to get 66% here. New Jersey's partisan swing from 1956 to 1964 was dramatic. After Johnson, it would go back to being a reliably Republican state, giving over 60% of the vote to Nixon and Reagan, and being carried by both Ford and H.W. Bush (the latter by double digits), before turning Democratic from 1992 onwards.

[lfromnj]

Well, NJ was a Republican state at the time.  Dewey carried it, and look at Ike's whopping margins (30 points in 1956)!  JFK managed to barely carry it due to the Catholic appeal.

And just four years later, Lyndon Johnson was to get 66% here. New Jersey's partisan swing from 1956 to 1964 was dramatic. After Johnson, it would go back to being a reliably Republican state, giving over 60% of the vote to Nixon and Reagan, and being carried by both Ford and H.W. Bush (the latter by double digits), before turning Democratic from 1992 onwards.

Not really.  In almost all those years it wasn't much more right wing than the nation as a whole besides 1988 due to peak GOP suburban margins. Even 1976 was only 4 points. By Cook CPVI it was probably had the same GOP lean that a state like NC or FL has.

[Calthrina950]

Well, NJ was a Republican state at the time.  Dewey carried it, and look at Ike's whopping margins (30 points in 1956)!  JFK managed to barely carry it due to the Catholic appeal.

And just four years later, Lyndon Johnson was to get 66% here. New Jersey's partisan swing from 1956 to 1964 was dramatic. After Johnson, it would go back to being a reliably Republican state, giving over 60% of the vote to Nixon and Reagan, and being carried by both Ford and H.W. Bush (the latter by double digits), before turning Democratic from 1992 onwards.

Not really.  In almost all those years it wasn't much more right wing than the nation as a whole besides 1988 due to peak GOP suburban margins. Even 1976 was only 4 points. By Cook CPVI it was probably had the same GOP lean that a state like NC or FL has.

Notice that I said it was a reliably Republican state, not a unassailable red bastion. New Jersey voted Republican in all but two elections between 1944 and 1992. Kennedy in 1960 and Johnson in 1964 were the only Democrats to carry it during that period. And it went Republican by landslide margins in 1952, 1956, 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988. And 1976 is still notable in that Ford held the state by a decent margin in what was a very close election; as the last "moderate" Republican President of the Eisenhower variety, he had strong appeal in the Northeast (1976 was also the last year that Vermont was more Republican than the national average). Carter was weaker with Catholic and white ethnic voters than Kennedy was.

Hence, it would be fair to say that New Jersey was reliably Republican throughout much of the twentieth century, and became solidly Democratic after 1992.