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Deep blue New York and New Jersey saw the largest shifts nationwide toward President-elect Donald Trump in the 2024 election, according to a top analyst.
Dave Wasserman, a senior editor and elections analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, found an 11.5% swing toward Trump in the Empire State and a similarly impressive 10.1% movement in the Republican’s favor in the Garden State compared to the 45th president’s 2020 results.
Florida (9.8%), Massachusetts (8.7%), California (8.4%), Texas (8.3%), Mississippi (7.7%), Rhode Island (7.0%), Tennessee (6.5%), and Illinois (6.4%) rounded out the top ten.
A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won the Democratic stronghold of New Jersey since 1988.
It’s been even longer in New York, where the last Republican to win was Ronald Reagan, in his 1984 landslide over Walter Mondale.
“NJ has become a SWING STATE!,” the New Jersey GOP tweeted shortly after Trump’s Election Day win over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Garden State GOP Chairman Bob Hugin credits Trump support from working-class voters with the party’s inroads in the reliably blue state.
“The Democrats have abandoned them, and it’s our opportunity to govern now,” Hugin told the New Jersey Monitor.
Meanwhile, New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox credited Trump with redefining “what it means to be a Republican in the 21st century” and expanding the party’s appeal “across demographic lines.”
“Under President-elect Donald Trump’s leadership, Republicans have broadened our coalition and brought a once-in-a-lifetime shift in our voter base, drawing in working-class Americans, voters of color, and younger citizens disillusioned with the status quo,” Cox wrote in an essay for Newsday.
“New York may be a blue state, but it is a working-class blue state, not a progressive, ‘woke’ blue state,” he added. “This is a state where working families want safe neighborhoods, affordable housing, good schools, and economic opportunity. They are not interested in the ideological experiments coming from Albany and Washington. While Democrats are pushing radical policies and government overreach — from gender ideology in kids’ sports to banning gas stoves — New Yorkers are concerned about the dual crises of inflation and illegal immigration.”
Trump, 78, made a play for both New York and New Jersey on the campaign trail.
He held a massive rally in Wildwood, NJ, in May that drew an estimated crowd of between 80,000 and 100,000 people — a record for a Garden State political rally.
Trump followed that up with rallies in the South Bronx, at Crotona Park, and at Madison Square Garden, in Midtown Manhattan.
