50 Days to General Election

New Jersey is one of the tried and true blue states, especially in this election. Several factors make Obama a favorite in this North Eastern state.


1996 General Election Results:
Clinton/Gore (D) with 1,436,206 votes *State and national winner
Bush/Quayle (R) with 1,356, 865 votes

2000 General Election Results:
Gore/Lieberman (D) with 1,788,850 votes *State winner
Bush/ Cheney (R) with 1,284, 173 votes *National winner

2004 General Election Results:
Kerry/Edwards (D) with 1,911,430 votes *State winner
Bush/Cheney (R) with 1,670, 003 votes *National winner

New Jersey is Democratic across the board for national seats.
Current governor, Jon Corzine, held a U.S. Senate seat from 2000-2005 and won the gubernatorial election in 2005. His term will be up in 2010. Corzine orginally supported Clinton and pledged to vote for her as a superdelegate in NJ, even after allying himself with Obama in 2004. Clinton won the NJ primary by at 54-44% margin. With Clinton gone from the race, Corzine now supports Obama. Corzine states that the economy is the biggest concern of NJ citizens and Obama must speak to this state on this issue to win its support. In July, Corzine joined Obama at an economic summit. Just after the summit, Corzine praised Obama's ability to objectively and reasonably address the nation's economic problems.

Democratic Senator, Frank Lautenberg, has held a Senate seat for NJ since 1982. He will be up for re-election this cycle. Sen. Lautenberg recently called upon the Jewish community in NJ to support Obama this November:

"I'm standing before you today to gather the Jewish community together to make a push to support Obama," Lautenberg said. "We need to roll up our sleeves and get the word out that Obama is our candidate."

Lautenberg appealed to concerns for Isreal's protection, stating that Obama is the candidate who has the ability to target the real terrorists by pulling troops out of Iraq to focus on more attainable security in the Middle East.

Democratic Senator, Robert Menendez, was appointed his position in Janurary 2006 after Corzine left his senate seat to become governor. Menendez won his seat officially later that year. He will be up for re-election in 2012. Menendez is also a strong supportor of Obama.

Historically, the candidate on the losing end of the NJ primary has not been elected as president in the general election. This year, NJ went to Clinton, but with Clinton out of the race the state's leaders have turned their support to Obama.

In polls, Obama is leading on McCain. As of September 14, according to pollster.com, Obama leads with 49% and McCain follows with 42.5%.

Another notable characteristic about NJ is that there are more Democrats registered to vote than Republicans. 23.7% percent of registered voters are Democrats - a total of 1,150,184
people. Republicans make up 18.3% with a total of 890,118 people. With a succesful GOTV campaign, Democrats can take on nearly any election in the state.

With a tradition of electing a Democrat to the white house, Democratic national leaders across the board who all support Obama, a constant lead in polls, if the election were to take place today Obama would take NJ.