Among NJ Counties, Hudson Votes for Corzine by Largest Margin, but Has Lowest Turnout

By • Nov 4th, 2009 • Category: Blog, News, Politics

As of midnight, the numbers coming out of the Hudson County Clerk’s office told a striking story of voter apathy: only 111,769 of the county’s 307,442 registered voters had cast ballots in this year’s election. That’s 36.35 percent, the lowest of any county in the state. While there are still ballots to be counted in Hudson and other counties, the lack of turnout here is certainly a disappointment.

Meanwhile, Hudson delivered the largest margin of victory to Gov. Corzine, with the incumbent winning 69 to 26.55 percent over ultimate victor Chris Christie. Essex County, which had the second-lowest turnout of the state’s counties, incidentally, gave the second-largest margin of victory to Corzine. A look at the county-by-county turnout rankings, coupled with which way the county voted, tells one of the many stories of how this race was lost. The urban base did not turn out aggressively enough for Corzine.

Whether the low turnout in Hudson has anything to do with July’s federal corruption busts is not 100 percent clear, but the probe — and the harm it may have inflicted on the political machine — couldn’t have helped.

Here are the numbers from other counties, along with which candidate that county went to. It’s worth noting that many of the Christie counties at the top of the list went to the Republican by a landslide, and Corzine’s highest-turnout victory county (Bergen) just barely gave the governor the win.

  • Hunterdon: 59.47 percent (Christie)
  • Somerset: 52.21 percent (Christie)
  • Ocean: 51.91 percent (Christie)
  • Cape May: 51.8 percent (Christie)
  • Morris: 50.22 percent (Christie)
  • Sussex: 49.96 percent (Christie)
  • Warren: 48.87 percent (Christie)
  • Bergen: 47.34 percent (Corzine)
  • Salem: 47.07 percent (Christie)
  • Burlington: 46.10 percent (Christie)
  • Monmouth: 45.27 percent (Christie)
  • Gloucester: 45.09 percent (Christie)
  • Union: 43.93 percent (Corzine)
  • Passaic: 42.23 percent (Corzine)
  • Middlesex: 41.87 percent (Christie)
  • Camden: 41.59 percent (Corzine)
  • Atlantic: 41.53 percent (Christie)
  • Cumberland: 39.04 percent (Corzine)
  • Mercer: 38.20 percent (Corzine)
  • Essex: 37.83 percent (Corzine)

For data geeks who want to mine the county-by-county numbers, they’re all linked on this page.

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is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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  • http://www.greenjersey.org Jennifer

    Wow. What a shame re. the low turnout! Maybe this explains why I was in and out of my polling place in two minutes.

  • http://www.jerseycityindependent.com Jon Whiten

    Yeah, I was the only voter in my polling place when I voted, and heard similar anecdotes from other Jersey City folks throughout the day, even people who were voting in the normally busy post-work time window.

  • Amanda Assadi-Rullow

    There was one person at my polling place! It took all of 2 minutes to go in and vote. Not sure what the big deal is / why people can’t make time to do it?

    Happen to know the results of Public Question #1 Historic Preservation Bond Act of 2009? Can’t seem to find anything about it online.

  • casual observer

    It’ll be fun watching the spinmeisters try to make sense of yesterday – blacks who supported obama didn’t vote, teabaggers on the rise, don’t call your opponent fat, main street hates wall street, prosecuting democrats is always a winner, don’t sleep with the unions (literally), don’t mess with term limits, tell sarah palin “thanks but no thanks” when she wants to endorse you, cities vs suburbs, don’t emphasize your right wingness, oh the list goes on and on and the only real beneficiaries are the pundints, uh pundits, uh punt it?

  • http://www.jerseycityindependent.com Jon Whiten

    Amanda-

    Question #1 narrowly passed statewide (see: http://greenjersey.org/2009/11/03/open-space-bond-question-passes-by-slim-margin/)

  • JGO

    I’m ashamed to admit that I did not vote. I voted for Corzine in the last election but I think his complete silence/lack of action on the JC corruption front definitely tempered my desire to see him win another term(i.e. if Corzine had threatened to withhold state funding unless resignations took place and/or demanded that Mayor Healy vociferously call for Vega &Co.’s resignations from the City Council I would have walked through fire to get to the polling place on time).