1965 New Jersey gubernatorial election

1965 New Jersey gubernatorial election

← 1961 November 2, 1965 1969 →
 
Nominee Richard J. Hughes Wayne Dumont
Party Democratic Republican
Popular vote 1,279,568 915,996
Percentage 57.4% 41.1%

County results
Hughes:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%
Dumont:      50–60%

Governor before election

Richard J. Hughes
Democratic

Elected Governor

Richard J. Hughes
Democratic

The 1965 New Jersey gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 1965. Incumbent Democrat Richard J. Hughes defeated Republican nominee Wayne Dumont with 57.39% of the vote. The gubernatorial elections from 1953 to 1965 are the last in New Jersey in which any party won more than two consecutive elections. This is the most recent time a Democrat was reelected Governor with a higher share of the vote than the previous election.

Primary elections were held on June 1, 1965.[1] Hughes was easily re-elected over token opposition from William H. Clark, while Dumont won a narrow primary over fellow state senator Charles W. Sandman Jr. of Cape May County.

Bergen County voted Democratic for the first time since 1931, and since this election, the county has become a bellwether having voted for the winning candidate all but once since. Democrats simultaneously flipped both houses of the New Jersey legislature, a first since 1915.

  1. ^ "Candidates for the Office of Governor - State of New Jersey" (PDF). Secretary of State of New Jersey. 1965. Retrieved August 24, 2015.