Since 1824, when direct elections began, nine American Presidents never carried New Jersey: Martin Van Buren, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush. Of the ten best Presidents ranked by historians in a 2009 C-Span poll, New Jersey cast a majority of its electoral votes for all but Lincoln and Truman, and voted to support six of the worst: James Buchanan, William Henry Harrison, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Pierce, and Hayes.
One of the ten best Presidents was a New Jerseyan, Woodrow Wilson, who served as Governor from 1911 to 1913. Wilson carried New Jersey in his first campaign, but lost it when he ran for re-election in 1916. Before the direct election of Presidents, New Jersey supported James Madison for President in 1808, but not when Madison ran for a second term in 1812.
New Jersey is 11-9 when it comes to supporting Presidents seeking re-election to a second term. New Jerseyans backed George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses Grant, Grover Cleveland, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. But New Jersey voters rejected second terms for Madison, Van Buren, Lincoln, Benjamin Harrison, Wilson, Hoover, Carter, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.