New Jersey has now gone blue in the last nine presidential elections, spanning more than three decades.

But this one was one that turns heads.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris continued the trend in wearing the Garden State and her 14 electoral votes – even though she beat the former Republican president Donald Trump by only 5 percentage points.

This is the smallest margin for a Republican presidential candidate in the state since 1992 – 32 years ago – when Bill Clinton won the state by just 3 points. And that was one of the telling data points because Trump won back the White House Tuesday.

So what happened?

1. Was there more fervor for Trump or less fervor for Harris? Or both?

A former owner of Atlantic City casino who still spends his summers his golf course in BedminsterTrump generally performed poorly in the polls in his home country for the past nine years. He lost New Jersey by 14 points in 2016 and 16 in 2020.

But Trump – who held a large gathering by the sea in Wildwood this spring – has suggested several times in recent months that he could play well in moderate Jersey. And many Republicans have been optimistic about early voting totals in recent days, even though registered Democrats here outnumber registered Republicans by about 900,000.

Ultimately, it was only the third time since 1996 that New Jersey failed to give a Democratic White House candidate a margin of at least 14 points. Nationally, Trump outperformed its 2020 results in various states and boosted other Republicans in elections.

“Simply put, there has been a national increase in the number of voters for Trump,” said Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University and former press secretary for the Former Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey.

“They clearly weren’t ready in New Jersey,” Rasmussen said.

Combine that with an apparent apathy for Harris. Trump actually received fewer popular votes across the country when winning (71.8 million) than when losing four years ago (74 million). For comparison, Harris received just 66 million votes nationally, compared to Biden’s 81 million in 2020.

In New Jersey, Trump received slightly more votes this year (1.9 million with 94% of votes counted) than in 2020 (1.88 million). Harris, however, fell to 2.09 million here, compared to Biden’s 2.6 million last time.

2. Hispanic voters played a key role.

Despite all the concerns about the impact controversial comments a comedian on Puerto Rico at a recent Trump rally, the former president-turned-president-elect made “huge gains” in Jersey counties with large Hispanic populations, such as Hudson And Passaiclike MSNBC election guru Steve Kornacki – once a political journalist from Jersey — highlighted on social networks.

Harris carried Hudson, but Kornacki noted that Trump improved his totals there — a county with an 80 percent Hispanic population, just across the river from Manhattan — by about 8 points.

“This is one of those giant Democratic counties that the Democratic Party relies on,” Kornacki said on air. “It’s a massive, massive change.”

In total, Trump won 12 of the state’s 21 counties. That includes Passaic, a Democratic stronghold where even the congressional race was closer than expected. Democratic Sen. Nellie Pou led Republican Billy Prempeh, but a surprisingly thin margin Wednesday night in his bid for the seat vacated by longtime Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell died in August. Pou is seeking to become the state’s first-ever Latina member of Congress.

3. Big issues were at stake.

Voters said inflation and the economy were the top issues on the way to the elections. State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, a Republican from Monmouth, said Harris has gained little ground in those areas, while many view Trump as an antidote to Harris and the president. Joe Biden.

“Whether you agree with him or not, there were a lot of ordinary, non-ideologue people who feel uncertain, who have experienced inflation, who see crime in their neighborhoods where they never have seen before,” O’Scanlon said. . “And Democrats tended to poop on those things.”

On top of that, Trump may have won the support of those who cared about immigration and the southern border in an election where fear and division played a leading role.

But Ben Dworkin, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship at Rowan University, cautions that it’s too early to know what’s behind Harris’ underperformance and Trump’s overperformance in Jersey.

“Obviously there was a big increase in the Republican vote,” Dworkin said. “There’s never anything. The challenge for Democrats is that they must first diagnose the problem before they can attempt to solve it.”

4. Democrats may have lost some punch.

Of course, New Jersey still has a Democratic governor, a Democratic legislature, and a Democratic-majority congressional delegation. And the last turned out to be true on tuesday.

But the last few years haven’t been kind to Jersey Democrats. Tuesday comes three years after the governor. Phil Murphy was re-elected by a closer margin than expected and the state Legislature I saw a near-tremor.

“New Jersey Democrats have a huge reckoning to make, one way or another,” said Rasmussen, Professor Rider. “This cycle has seen the president and governor the closest they have been in decades. They have been on autopilot for too long.

Former state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, added that “we’ve had a blue state for a long time” and that “sometimes people are a little less focused on their work to build the state.” organization and keeping voters.” motivated. »

5. The polls were off.

No poll – external or internal to the Democrats – predicts this. And Trump’s recent statement that he could win New Jersey was dismissed by some as his usual bravado.

The most recent opinion polls give Harris a lead of as much as 20 points, which may lead to overconfidence. Governor. Phil Murphy Last week, he said he wasn’t worried about New Jersey and that he and other Democrats were heading to Pennsylvania in what turned out to be a losing effort to win the swing state for Harris .

Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, sounded a note of caution about it. 20 points ahead in New Jerseysaying the race could tighten between now and Election Day.

This is certainly the case.

“While the election went in the direction we expected and the pre-election polls hinted at, the gains Republicans made in the Garden State were surprising,” Koning said Wednesday. “This follows a national trend in which Republicans have made notable gains in blue states, and while their gains weren’t enough to win, they certainly eroded the healthy Democrats’ lead.”

NJ Advance Media Editors Richard Cowen And Katie Kausch contributed to this report.

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Brent Johnson can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on @johnsb01.