Despite a high-stakes showdown between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, voter turnout in the Garden State hit its lowest point ever for a presidential election year.
According to certified results released last week, just 65% of New Jersey’s 6.6 million registered voters cast ballots in the race. That translates to about 4.3 million voters—a sharp drop from the 72% turnout recorded in 2020, when 4.6 million voters participated in an election conducted entirely by mail due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2024 figure also marks a 2-percentage-point decline from the previous low, set in 2012.
For much of the 20th century, turnout for presidential elections in New Jersey routinely surpassed 80%, with the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy drawing over 90% of registered voters to the polls.
While raw voter numbers in New Jersey have risen in recent years due to increased voter registration, turnout percentages have steadily declined. For example, only 40% of registered voters participated in the 2021 gubernatorial race—one of the lowest figures in state history.
Despite losing to Trump nationally, Harris continued a 30-year trend of Democratic presidential candidates carrying New Jersey. However, the margin was far narrower than expected, with Harris beating Trump by just 5.8 percentage points. This represents the strongest showing for a Republican presidential candidate in New Jersey since 1992, when the state was still considered a swing state.
Trump secured 1.96 million votes in the Garden State—an increase of 85,000 votes compared to his 2020 performance—while Harris received 2.22 million votes, a drop of 250,000 compared to President Joe Biden’s 2020 total. Trump also made notable gains among Hispanic and Black voters.
The results have sparked debate about whether New Jersey, long considered a Democratic stronghold, could be shifting toward battleground status. Democrats, meanwhile, have acknowledged the need to focus more on issues like affordability and economic concerns to energize their base.
In addition to the turnout slump, the way New Jersey residents voted also highlighted changing preferences. This year, 20% of voters cast ballots by mail, 27% participated in the nine-day early in-person voting period, 50% voted in person on Election Day, and 2.6% used provisional ballots.
Nationally, voter turnout was also down slightly, with 64% of eligible voters participating, compared to 66% in 2020. However, New Jersey’s turnout placed it behind 23 other states in voter participation.
As New Jersey gears up for its 2025 gubernatorial race to replace term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy, questions remain about whether this year’s turnout and voting trends are an anomaly or a sign of deeper political shifts in the state.
Do you really believe that all those ballots in 2020 were real? Jimmy Carter said that mail in ballots are rife for fraud.