1912 United States presidential election in New Jersey California, and the Republican nominees, incumbent President William Howard Taft of Ohio and his running mate incumbent Vice President James S. Sherman of New York. Wilson carried New Jersey with a bare plurality of 41.20% of the vote to Roosevelt's 33.60%, a victory margin of 7.60%. Taft came in third place with 20.53%. Coming in a distant fourth was Socialist candidate Eugene V. Debs, who took 3.69%. Like much of the Northeast, New Jersey in this era was a staunchly Republican state, having not given a majority of the vote to a Democratic presidential candidate since 1892. In his initial
Presidency of William Howard Taft As Taft moved to the right during his presidency, he became an important ally. Nominated for a second term at the 1912 Republican National Convention, he became ill during the campaign and died on October 30, 1912, just prior to the election. As the Constitution then lacked a mechanism for choosing an intra-term replacement (prior to ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967), the vice presidency remained vacant for the final days of Taft's presidency. During that time Secretary of State Philander C. Knox was next in line to the presidency, per the Presidential Succession Act of 1886. Taft did