# 1910 New Jersey gubernatorial election

* This article is part of a series aboutWoodrow Wilson
Personal
Early life
Boyhood home
South Carolina home
Washington, D.C. house
Race relations
New Jersey gubernatorial election
Wilsonianism
28th President of the United States
Presidency
timeline
Transition
Inaugurations
first
second
Judicial appointments
Supreme Court
Foreign policy
Tenure
Women's suffrage
procession
Silent Sentinels
Federal Reserve Act
Clayton Antitrust Act
Federal Trade Commission
United States occupation of Veracruz
Pancho Villa Expedition
Coalfield War
Daylight saving time
Banana Wars
Louis Brandeis Supreme Court nomination
18th Amendment
19th Amendment
World War I
Zimmermann telegram
Thrasher incident
Entry
Against Austria-Hungary
Against Germany
Home front
Espionage Act
Fourteen Points
Wilsonian Armenia
Paris Peace Conference
Big Four
Treaty of Versailles
League of Nations
Presidential campaigns
1912
election
convention
The New Freedom
1916
election
convention
Legacy
Memorials
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Wilson Center
Presidential Library :
vte :
Elections in New Jersey :
Federal government
U.S. President
1788-89
1792
1796
1800
1804
1808
1812
1816
1820
1824
1828
1832
1836
1840
1844
1848
1852
1856
1860
1864
1868
1872
1876
1880
1884
1888
1892
1896
1900
1904
1908
1912
1916
1920
1924
1928
1932
1936
1940
1944
1948
1952
1956
1960
1964
1968
1972
1976
1980
1984
1988
1992
1996
2000
2004
Dem
2008
Rep
Dem
2012
2016
Dem
2020
Dem
2024
Dem
Rep
U.S. Senate
1788
1790
1790 (sp)
1792
1796
1796 (sp)
1798
1799 (sp)
1801 (sp)
1803 (sp)
1804
1808
1809
1809 (sp)
1810
1815
1816 (sp)
1817
1820
1823
1823 (sp)
1826
1826 (sp)
1829
1829 (sp)
1833
1835
1839
1840
1845
1846
1851
1853 (sp)
1857
1858
1863 (sp)
1864
1866 (sp)
1867 (sp)
1869
1875
1877
1881
1883
1886
1889
1893
1895
1899
1901
1902 (sp)
1905
1907
1911
1913
1916
1918
1918 (sp)
1922
1924
1928
1930
1930 (sp)
1932 (sp)
1934
1936
1938 (sp)
1940
1942
1944 (sp)
1948
1954
1958
1960
1964
1966
1970
1972
1976
1978
1982
1984
1988
1990
1994
1996
2000
2002
2006
2008
2012
2013 (sp)
2014
2018
2020
2024
2026
U.S. House of Representatives
1789
1791
1792
1794
1795 (sp AL)
1797
1798
1800
1803
1804
1806
1808 (sp AL)
1808
1810 (sp AL)
1810
1814 (sp 3rd)
1813
1814
1816
1818
1820
1821 (sp AL)
1822
1824
1826
1828
1828 (sp AL)
1830
1832
1834
1836
1836
1838
1840
1842
1844
1846
1850
1852
1854
1856
1858
1860
1862
1864
1866
1868
1870
1872
1874
1876
1878
1880
1882
1884
1886
1888
1890
1892
1894
1896
1898
1900
1902
1904
1906
1908
1910
1912
1913 (sp 6th)
1914
1916
1920
1924
1926
1928
1932
1934
1936
1938
1940
1942
1944
1948
1950
1951 (sp 9th)
1952
1954
1956
1958
1960
1968
1972
1980
1984
1988
1988 (sp 3rd)
1990
1990 (sp 1st)
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2006
2006 (5th)
2006 (12th)
2008
2010
2012
2012 (sp 10th)
2014
2016
2018
2020
2022
2024
2024 (sp 10th)
2026 :
State government
General elections
2009
2010
2011
2013
2015
2017
2019
2021
2023
2025
Gubernatorial elections
1843
1844
1847
1850
1853
1856
1859
1862
1865
1868
1871
1874
1877
1880
1883
1886
1889
1892
1895
1898
1901
1904
1907
1910
1913
1916
1919
1922
1925
1928
1931
1934
1937
1940
1943
1946
1949
1953
1957
1961
1965
1969
1973
1977
1981
1985
1989
1993
1997
2001
2005
2009
2013
2017
2021
2025
Senate elections
1873
1957
1959
1961
1963
1965
1967
1971
1973
1977
1981
1983
1987
1991
1993
1997
2001
2003
2007
2011
2013
2017
2021
2023
General Assembly elections
1985
1987
1989
1991
2015
2017
2019
2021
2023
2025 :
Newark
Mayoral elections
1970
2002
2006
2010
2014
2018
2022 :
Jersey City
Mayoral elections
2001
2004
2005
2009
2013
2017
2021
2025 :
Hoboken
Mayoral elections
2005
2017
2021
2025 :
Atlantic City
Mayoral elections
2017
2021 :
vte :
The 1910 New Jersey gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1910. Democratic nominee and future President Woodrow Wilson defeated Republican Assemblyman Vivian M. Lewis with 53.93% of the vote. During the campaign, Wilson underwent a political transformation from a symbol of conservative Wall Street reaction into one of the leading members of his party's progressive faction. His victory was widely understood to be the prelude to his campaign for the presidency in 1912.
Wilson was the first Democrat elected Governor of New Jersey since 1892 and the first Democrat to carry Bergen, Burlington, Gloucester, Somerset, Morris, Ocean, or Union counties in that time. This was the last time Somerset County voted more Democratic than the state as a whole in a New Jersey governor election until 2021.

## Background

Since 1895 and the realignment of Northeastern politics under President William McKinley, New Jersey had been controlled by the Republican Party, which had won five consecutive gubernatorial elections after losing the previous ten. The New Jersey Senate, apportioned on a per-county basis, was controlled by the Republican Party, and both of the state's United States Senators, John Kean and Frank O. Briggs, were Republicans. Republican presidential candidates had carried the state handily in every election since 1896.
In 1910, however, Democratic hopes were high given the declining popularity of the William Howard Taft administration and a growing rift in the Republican ranks between the conservative Taft and his progressive predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt. Seeking to break the Republican hold on the governor's office and elect a Democratic U.S. Senator in 1911, party leaders sought a progressive candidate who could divide the state's large Republican vote.

### Woodrow Wilson

Princeton University president Woodrow Wilson had long been recruited for a career in politics, widely known for progressive, sometimes controversial, reforms he had instilled at Princeton but also considered a conservative Southerner by intuition. As early as 1906, George Brinton McClellan Harvey had publicly spoken of Wilson as a potential President of the United States; Wilson entertained the idea by dining with Harvey soon after.
In 1907, Harvey and former Senator James Smith Jr. backed Wilson for the United States Senate, though given Republican control of the legislature, the endorsement was purely honorary; Wilson withdrew his name in favor of Edwin Augustus Stevens Jr., his former Princeton classmate. Though he declined to seek office, Wilson did write a "Credo" that year for possible use by the New York Sun, which denounced labor unionism and the closed shop, embraced "the right of freedom of contract" as the "most precious of all the possession of a free people," and declared opposition to the regulation of trusts by government commissions. In a speech to the graduating class of 1909, Wilson declared that labor unions existed primarily to keep production standards as low as possible.
In early 1910, Harvey and Smith, who by then had become the boss of the Essex County machine, met at Delmonico's and settled on Wilson as their preferred candidate for governor. Both Harvey and Smith were leading eastern conservatives, representative of Wall Street and machine politics; they considered Wilson suitably conservative based on his public political statements critical of Bryanism and Theodore Roosevelt. Others viewed Wilson as a potential progressive based on his university reforms, where he had publicly opposed the influence of wealthy donors, particularly Moses Taylor Pyne, on education and research.

## Democratic nomination
### Candidates

* William Harrigan, Essex County Sheriff
* John Hinchliffe, former State Senator from Passaic County and Mayor of Paterson
* Frank S. Katzenbach, former Mayor of Trenton and nominee for Governor in 1907
* George Sebastian Silzer, State Senator from Middlesex County
* Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University
* H. Otto Wittpenn, Mayor of Jersey City

### Campaign

After Wilson privately informed Harvey that, if the nomination were provided to him "on a silver platter," that he would have to give "serious consideration," Harvey and Smith began to actively work to secure his nomination. Wilson also began to position himself politically in anticipation of the general election campaign, attempting to shed his conservative reputation in order to attract progressive votes. However, Wilson sought to avoid association with radicals, and he privately reassured Smith that he would not challenge the existing state party machine, so long as the machine backed his policies and left him his choice of "measures and men."
Wilson spent most of the summer attending to his university duties, while Harvey and Smith looked past 1910 toward a potential presidential campaign, setting up meetings with men of influence in national politics, including Henry Watterson, Roger Charles Sullivan, and Edward N. Hurley. On July 12, Wilson also met with county political bosses to secure their support for his nomination. The bosses were satisfied with Wilson's acquiescence on machine power but disappointed in his support for a local option on liquor regulation. (Opposition to liquor restrictions had long been a cornerstone of the New Jersey Democratic platform.) He declined to modify his position. Three days later, Wilson publicly denied that he was a candidate for the nomination but announced his willingness to be drafted.
Having turned his attention to politics, Wilson expected the bosses to secure his nomination without contest. His chief obstacle in that regard was Frank S. Katzenbach, the mayor of Trenton and the 1907 nominee. Katzenbach had narrowly lost the election and remained popular with Democratic voters; a Trenton Times poll of Mercer County, where both candidates had long resided, returned an overwhelming majority for Katzenbach. When Katzenbach remained in the race through the summer, Wilson wrote to Harvey, "I do not understand this Katzenbach business at all."
In addition to ambivalence from party faithful, Wilson faced active hostility from the state's organized labor movement given his past hostility. Wilson was initially received poorly by progressive elements in the state, especially the Jersey City "New Idea" men led by George L. Record, Mark M. Fagan, and Joseph Patrick Tumulty.
The popular opposition surprised and disappointed Wilson, who considered it a reversal of fortune from the popular support and insider opposition he had experienced as university president. Nevertheless, he maintained a strategy of public silence, avoiding any direct comment on controversial issues and relying on the machine to deliver his nomination. As the convention approached, progressives planned to vote for the strongest anti-Wilson option.

### Convention

The Democratic convention was held in Trenton on September 15.
Entering the convention, Wilson's nomination was far from assured, but a slight majority of delegates favored him over Katzenbach. As part of an effort to keep Wilson in the machine's good graces, Harvey allowed him to personally write the party platform, which was warmly embraced by progressives and ratified to start proceedings.
Katzenbach was nominated by John W. Wescott, setting off a popular demonstration for the candidate. Wilson's name was submitted by Smith, who admitted few delegates had "a passing acquaintance" with his candidate. Despite protests on the convention floor, balloting began and Wilson's nomination was carried through by boss control, as expected from the start. The first round of balloting showed Wilson with 42.5 more votes than required. Before an official count could be announced, the Middlesex County delegation switched their 62 votes from Senator Silzer to Wilson, followed by the remainder of the delegates to make the nomination unanimous.
1910 Democratic convention (before shifts) :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Democratic | Woodrow Wilson | 749.5 | 52.97% |
| | Democratic | Frank S. Katzenbach | 372 | 26.29% |
| | Democratic | George Sebastian Silzer | 210 | 14.84% |
| | Democratic | H. Otto Wittpenn | 76.5 | 5.41% |
| | Democratic | William Harrigan | 6 | 0.42% |
| | Democratic | John Hinchliffe | 1 | 0.07% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 1,415 | 100.00% |
After learning of his nomination, Wilson made the twelve mile trip from Princeton, where he had been golfing, to accept the nomination, endorse the party platform, and address the convention. Wilson was introduced as "the next President of the United States" and his acceptance speech, which stressed his independence from the machine, won applause from the delegates. Joseph Patrick Tumulty, one of the progressive men who had opposed Wilson's nomination, was won over by the speech and later became Wilson's personal secretary.
He immediately announced his intention to resign from Princeton, and his resignation was made effective at the next board meeting on October 20.

## Republican nomination
### Candidates

* Joseph S. Frelinghuysen, State Senator from Somerset County and President of the New Jersey Senate
* Pierre Prosper Garven, Mayor of Bayonne and Hudson County prosecutor
* Vivian M. Lewis, State Banking and Insurance Commissioner and former Assemblyman from Paterson
* William P. Martin, member of the Essex County Progressive Republican League

### Primary

Primary elections to elect delegates to the state convention were held on September 13.

### Convention

The Republican Convention was held in Trenton on September 20. Vivian M. Lewis was nominated after balloting showed that he had 801 and three-eighths votes, with only 487 necessary to win. After this, Garven's supporters in Hudson County threw their support to Lewis and he was nominated unanimously.
1910 Republican convention (before shifts) :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
| | Republican | Vivian M. Lewis | 801.375 | 75.89% |
| | Republican | William P. Martin | 115.625 | 10.95% |
| | Republican | Pierre Prosper Garven | 83 | 7.86% |
| | Republican | Joseph S. Frelinghuysen | 56 | 5.30% |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 1,056 | 100.00% |
The platform largely reflected Lewis's progressive views, including a call for a rate-making public utilities commission, an employment liability law, civil service regulations, regulation of automobiles, and improve election and primary laws.

## General election
### Candidates

* John C. Butterworth (Socialist Labor)
* Wilson B. Killingbeck (Socialist)
* Vivian M. Lewis, State Banking and Insurance Commissioner and former Assemblyman from Paterson (Republican)
* C. F. Repp (Prohibition)
* Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University (Democratic)

### Campaign

Wilson's nomination and acceptance speech instantly brought national political scrutiny to the campaign, given the widespread understanding that it would be the prelude to a presidential campaign in 1912. Wilson, a political novice, hoped for a low-key, self-funded campaign which would be run on a part-time basis. He had a distaste for the barnstorming, back-slapping politics associated with Bryanism and initially proposed a campaign budget of $500; before its end, Smith alone would contribute over $50,000.
In September, Wilson delivered opening speeches in Jersey City and Plainfield, which waffled between his prior support for Jeffersonian limited government and his new progressive stances. The speeches met mixed reviews; Tumulty advised the candidate that his performance was "most disappointing." Wilson's fortunes improved dramatically after a September 30 address in Newark, in which he established his progressive credentials and addressed claims that he lacked specifics by calling for strict regulation of corporations and a commission to regulate public utilities.
The turning point in the campaign came in October, shortly after Wilson's resignation from Princeton was made formal. George L. Record, a well-known progressive columnist and Republican candidate for U.S. House, answered Wilson's open invitation to a public debate. Wilson counter-proposed a public correspondence; on October 19, Record submitted a long list of questions, testing Wilson's support for nearly every progressive cause. Wilson answered in favor of every policy position and publicly pledged that his party's bosses would not control state government if he won election. He nevertheless declined to demand that legislative candidates pledge themselves to the progressive cause, claiming such a demand would be "unbecoming" interference with the legislative election.
On the eve of the election, Wilson delivered a final speech calling for the "regeneration" of the Democratic Party:
   "We have begun a fight that, it may be, will take many a generation to complete, the fight against special privilege, but you know that men are not put into this world to go the path of ease; they are put into this world to go the path of pain and struggle. ... [A]nd some day, when we are all dead, men will come and point at the distant upland with a great shout of joy and triumph and thank God that there were men who undertook to lead in the struggle. What difference does it make if we ourselves do not reach the uplands? We have given our lives to the enterprise."

### Results

On Election Day, Wilson won the state in a historic sweep, especially in the state's political context. Democrats took overwhelming control of the State Assembly.
1910 New Jersey gubernatorial election :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Democratic | Woodrow Wilson | 233,682 | 53.93% | 6.68 |
| | Republican | Vivian M. Lewis | 184,626 | 42.61% | 6.67 |
| | Socialist | Wilson B. Killingbeck | 10,134 | 2.34% | 0.60 |
| | Prohibition | C. F. Repp | 2,818 | 0.65% | 0.68 |
| | Socialist Labor | John C. Butterworth | 2,032 | 0.47% | 0.07 |
| Total votes | Total votes | Total votes | 433,292 | 100.00% | |
| | Democratic gain from Republican | Democratic gain from Republican | Swing | 6.68 | |