Keep in mind, my reply was to his query about "
ANY New Jersey presidential election result," so my answer was responsive to his point. If I had the time, I would do a historical retrospective going back to our first presidential election. If the question had been the last few presidential elections, the response would have been different (or nonexistent).
But to the original point, while doing something completely unrelated, I stumbled upon this about the town of Nutley, NJ, which supports my point in that a large number of people are not affiliated with a particular party, and the results from the Nutley, NJ Wikipedia page show that Nutley has voted differently, depending on the candidates, and likely not due to party affiliation?
Nutley was interesting because of the large number of unaffiliated voters. When one filters out the cities that lean heavily Democratic, and the wealthier areas such as parts of Monmouth, Ocean, Warren, and Hunterdon (and probably missing few) counties, it is likely that many places in NJ are like Nutley.
It's only on social media where people are hyperpolitical that these arguments/debates ensue.
"As of March 23, 2011, there were a total of 18,833 registered voters in Nutley, of which 5,737 (30.5%) were registered as
Democrats, 3,753 (19.9%) were registered as
Republicans and 9,327 (49.5%) were registered as
Unaffiliated. There were 142 voters registered to other parties.
[93]
In the
2016 presidential election, Republican
Donald Trump received 49.9% (7,061 votes), edging out Democrat
Hillary Clinton with 46.9% (6,634 votes).
[94] In the
2012 presidential election, incumbent Democrat
Barack Obama received 50.33% of the vote (6,507 votes), ahead of Republican
Mitt Romney with 48.52% (6,273 votes) and other candidates with 1.14% (148 votes), among the 12,928 ballots cast by the township's 19,623 registered voters, for a turnout of 65.88%.
[95][96] In the
2008 presidential election, Republican
John McCain received 52.4% of the vote (7,325 cast), ahead of Democrat Barack Obama with 45.6% (6,374 votes) and other candidates with 1.2% (163 votes), among the 13,985 ballots cast by the township's 18,853 registered voters, for a turnout of 74.2%.
[97] In the
2004 presidential election, Republican
George W. Bush received 54.5% of the vote (7,579 ballots cast), outpolling Democrat
John Kerry with 43.8% (6,099 votes) and other candidates with 0.6% (106 votes), among the 13,914 ballots cast by the township's 18,087 registered voters, for a turnout percentage of 76.9."
en.wikipedia.org