Bush carried New Jersey with 56.24% of the vote, while Dukakis received 42.60% a 13.64% margin of victory.[1] New Jersey weighed in for this election as almost 6% points 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, Essex, and Hudson.
As of the 2024 presidential election, this is the last time that New Jersey would vote Republican in a presidential election, as well as the last time that the Republican nominee has carried the following counties: Burlington, Camden, Middlesex, and Union.[2] All of these counties would become reliably Democratic in every election that has followed, as northern suburban voters shifted away from the GOP in the 1990s. Gloucester would not vote Republican again until 2016. Atlantic and Cumberland counties would not vote Republican again until 2024. Bush won the election in New Jersey with a strong 13.6-point margin.
Results
1988 United States presidential election in New Jersey[3]
International policy with the buckling Soviet Union was a critical component of the political landscape in the late 1980s. Vice President Bush can be seen here standing with the United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, on the New York waterfront, 1988.
