The last day of the race for Democratic nominees in 1980 came in New Jersey and seven other states, when Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy fought for delegates in a rare attempt to deny the incumbent president the nomination of his party for re-election.
More than 617,000 Democrats voted in the primaries in New Jersey on June 3, breaking the turnout record set four years earlier at 575,000.
Kennedy defeated Carter in New Jersey with 102,722 votes, with a 56% -38% advantage in the June 3 primaries in New Jersey. This gave Kennedy 68 delegates from New Jersey, with 45 from Carter.
In a campaign led by the late Fran Raine, a senator from Massachusetts covered 19 counties. He won Bergen 2-1 and Essex more than 20,000 and Hudson 625. Carter won Cape May with seven votes and Salem with 198 votes.
U.S. Senator Harrison Williams was behind Kennedy, and Gov. Brendan Byrne was a Carter supporter. Among Kennedy’s supporters were Essex County Executive Director Peter Shapiro, Newark council member Sharpe James, Bergen County freelancer Jeremiah O’Connor and Assembly member Richard Van Wagner (D-Middletown).
MP James Howard (D-Spring Lake Heights) chaired the Kennedy delegation to the Democratic National Convention, and MP Barbara McConnell (D-Flemington) was vice chair.
In addition to New Jersey, Kennedy has won California, New Mexico, Rhode Island and South Dakota. Carter won in Ohio, Montana and West Virginia with a slight victory for renaming.
