New Jersey has not always been kind to native sons running for the presidency

Former Gov. Chris Christie is fighting to become one of just a handful of Garden State natives to win a major-party nomination for president.

Newark-born and governor from 2010 to 2018, Christie's ties to New Jersey are deep. Though he went to the University of Delaware, he has a degree from Seton Hall Law School, served as U.S. Attorney General for the District of New Jersey and has homes in Mendham Township and Bay Head.

If he gains the Republican nomination against the odds, some might expect Christie to have the typical home-state advantage seen in most U.S. presidential elections. The general assumption is candidates typically fare better in their native state, state of residence, or both, due to a sense of kinship and goodwill presumptively built up during a rise to popularity and prominence. 

For New Jersey voters, that trend hasn't always run true.

In 1916, Garden State voters rejected former governor and incumbent President Woodrow Wilson in his reelection bid. The nearly 12% margin of defeat in his state of residence is second all time for a winning presidential candidate behind Donald Trump's in 2016. In 1916, it was unprecedented.

The issue for Wilson was the same one facing Christie today. Though a former governor, who had previously received the backing of New Jersey voters, the politics of the state's electorate ran counter to his own. In 1916, New Jersey was the nation's second-most Republican state in terms of vote share. Wilson was a Democrat.

Wilson took New Jersey's electoral votes in 1912, but only because the state's Republicans split their votes among incumbent President William Howard Taft and third-party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. In 1916, Wilson's primary opposition was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Hughes of New York. Hughes handily won New Jersey, but lost the electoral vote 277-254.

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Though Republicans guided the state in the early 20th century, the circumstances today have flipped. Ominously for Christie, President George Herbert Walker Bush was the last Republican presidential candidate to win New Jersey. He did so in 1988.

In the run-up to the 1992 election, Bush campaigned in New Jersey roughly once every 10 days. The night before the election, he was at the Madison Train Station. Democratic challenger Bill Clinton nonetheless took the state.

In 1912 and 1916, Wilson won his home state of Virginia. New Jersey-born presidential candidate Grover Cleveland won over Garden State voters on three occasions: 1884, 1888 and 1892. As the Democratic nominee for president in 1888, Cleveland nonetheless lost his state of residence, New York. It was his one and only failed presidential campaign.

Christie is also coming off a defeat, having put himself in the running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination before bowing out after a sixth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary. Earlier this year, Christie again joined the list of candidates with deep New Jersey ties to contest for a major party's nomination alongside names such as William Dayton, Bill Bradley, Cory Booker and John Delaney.

The second time was the charm for Winfield Scott

A second stab at a major party presidential nomination is unlikely to pay off for Christie, according to experts. But it worked for Winfield Scott, New Jersey's first prominent presidential nominee.

Virginia born, Scott for most of his adult life lived with his wife, Maria Mayo, and children in a Federal-style mansion on the corner of East Jersey Street and Madison Avenue in Elizabeth called Hampton Place. Inherited by Mayo in 1818, it was demolished in 1928. The site now holds a gas station.

Trained as a lawyer, Scott spent his career in the military. He fought in the New York frontier during the War of 1812, lost repute during the Second Seminole War in 1836 and captured Mexico City in 1847. The following year, he returned to New Jersey from Mexico and earned the Whig Party’s nomination for president. The U.S. Army's undefeated commander-in-chief was nonetheless beaten by his Mexican War subordinate Zachary Taylor.

Four years later in Baltimore, Scott won the Whig Party nomination, beating out then-President Millard Fillmore and Daniel Webster, Fillmore's secretary of state. The nomination was declared unanimous. The campaign went miserably.

The Boston Post editorial staff derided Scott for "stumping the Western states" with his five-week railroad tour in a rebuke that made New Jersey papers just days before the election. Scott and running mate Senator John P. Hale of New Hampshire were "lowering the dignity of the office to which they aspire," the newspaper reported, pointing to past presidents with far more subdued campaigns.

"Scott in the blarney speech-making line runs a mile ahead of his ally," they wrote. "Was ever so much puerility uttered in such a short compass before?"

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Touring the country in hopes of securing votes was a radical departure from campaign norms in Scott's day. Actively seeking the presidency was frowned upon, Gil Troy wrote in 1991's "See How They Ran: The Changing Role of the Presidential Candidate." Scott was accused by Democrats of begging for votes.

His opponent Franklin Pierce, a pro-slavery candidate from New Hampshire who approved the Gadsden Purchase and wanted to buy Cuba, was rewarded for his "talent for silence," according to Troy. Scott lost the popular vote to Pierce in Virginia and New Jersey. More importantly, he lost the election by an electoral vote of 254-42.

Another North Jersey presidential candidate

Next up to represent New Jersey was Scott's Civil War-era rival, George B. McClellan. McClellan served under Scott, a family friend, during the Mexican-American War. However, McClellan forced Scott into retirement after gaining control of the new U.S. Army of the Potomac in 1861. He took Scott's spot as general-in-chief a few months later.

Born in Pennsylvania, McClellan adopted New Jersey as his home after being relieved of command in November 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln, his Republican opponent in the 1864 election. Like Scott, McClellan sought the nomination as a U.S. Army general on active duty. He also ran as a resident of North Jersey, calling the area of West Orange just north of the Seton Hall Prep athletic complex his home.

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Unlike Scott, McClellan won New Jersey on election day with 52.8% of the vote. New Jersey newspapers had backed his campaign. The Monmouth Democrat even predicted his victory in a "triumphant election."

"His purity of character, enlarged and liberal views of public policy, and devotion to the Union and the Constitution have designated him as the man to lead our country out of its difficulties," it wrote in September 1864.

McClellan's platform was anti-war and based on a promise to negotiate peace terms with Confederacy leadership. But by Election Day, a string of Union successes had many convinced the war would soon end. McClellan had also been accused by falsely-credited claims by Republican-leaning publications of being as devoted to Confederate interests as Robert E. Lee and therefore "totally unfit to be the commander of a Union Army."

McClellan lost his home state of Pennsylvania and the election in a 212-21 electoral vote. He then retreated to Europe for nearly four years.

McClellan returned to the political stage in 1877 when the New Jersey Democratic Party nominated him for governor. He won with 51.7% of the vote, chiefly over Republican nominee William Newell, and served a then-requisite three-year term.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ presidential election 2024: History does not favor Chris Christie