After a hard-fought contest, Wilson defeated Hughes by nearly 600,000 votes out of about 18.5 million cast in the popular vote. Wilson secured a narrow majority in the Electoral College by sweeping the Solid South and winning several swing states with razor-thin margins. Wilson won California, the decisive state, by just 3,773 votes. Since the GOP was not as split as in 1912, Wilson did not have the same easy victory as he had 4 years ago, losing his home state of New Jersey along with the states of Oregon, New York, West Virginia (however, Wilson still gained an electoral vote from the state), Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. However, Wilson still managed to keep his win with two states from 1912 (Utah and Washington) and fully won California (having only gotten 2 out of 13 votes from California in 1912).