The Last Time(s) New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Mattered

Voters in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will head to the polls on Tuesday, the first time ever that the tri-state region has wielded so much influence so early in each party’s nominating calendar.

In the past, all three have generally scheduled their primaries too late to matter. But there have been exceptions. Here’s a look back at how primary voters in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have behaved when their votes have actually mattered:

NEW JERSEY

Democrats

New Jersey’s primary was held in early June until this year.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter came to the state as the clear leader in the national race, but fighting off a late effort from the party establishment to deny him a first-ballot nomination and, thus, to throw the convention wide open. To that end, Idaho Senator Frank Church and California Governor Jerry Brown had both jumped into the race in late spring, each reeling off a series of victories. Hubert Humphrey, the party’s 1968 nominee and a candidate in 1972, was also sending signals that he’d accept that nomination if a brokered convention turned to him. Similar speculation surrounded Ted Kennedy, who was publicly cool toward Carter.

Carter ran in New Jersey with the backing of Governor Brendan T. Byrne, but the party regulars rallied behind a delegate slate pledged to Brown and the unannounced Humphrey, handing Carter a sobering defeat. The Georgian also lost California to Brown on the same day. But he averted disaster by winning Ohio, thus preserving his unbroken streak of winning at least one contest on every day that primaries and caucuses were scheduled. The Ohio win was just enough for Carter to claim a first-ballot majority.

Four years later, Carter again lost New Jersey, this time in a 56-37 percent thrashing at the hands of Ted Kennedy. The result accurately portended serious trouble for the incumbent president’s general-election viability, although it was also party attributable to parochial Garden State politics: Governor Byrne has again mobilized the Democratic establishment on Carter’s behalf, but resentment of the governor from some county leaders and the party’s rank-and-file created a backlash that boosted Kennedy. (The expectation that Carter would sew up the nomination with an Ohio win on the same day probably encouraged some New Jersey Democrats to use their votes to send a message to Byrne.)

In ‘84, New Jersey seemed poised to deliver a vital last-minute victory to Gary Hart, who had rocketed to the Democratic lead with a New Hampshire upset of Walter Mondale, fallen back with a string of defeats in southern and big industrial states, and then regained his footing in the late spring. He enjoyed the surprise backing of the state’s Democratic chairman, just as his “New Ideas” resonated with the state’s suburban voters. But then Hart, in an attempt at humor, was caught ridiculing New Jersey’s reputation for pollution to a group of Californians, a gaffe that dominated the final days of the campaign. Final score: Mondale 46 percent, Hart 30, and Jesse Jackson 24. Mondale won Ohio on the same day, scratching together just enough delegates to claim the nomination.

1984 was New Jersey’s last hurrah. Until this year.

Republicans

It’s considered a foregone conclusion that John McCain will win New Jersey’s winner-take-all primary on Tuesday, but this is the first time Garden State Republicans have ever really had a choice at all in their primary.

In 1976, Ronald Reagan skipped the primary, allowing Gerald Ford to gobble up most of the delegates. And in 1980, Reagan claimed 81 percent to George H.W. Bush’s 17 percent in a primary that was held long after Reagan had emerged as the presumptive nominee. The G.O.P. races in 1988, 1996 and 2000 were also settled long before it was New Jersey’s turn.

CONNECTICUT

Democrats

The last meaningful Connecticut primary came 16 years ago, when the state’s Democrats momentarily turned their party’s race on its head and nearly derailed Bill Clinton’s bandwagon.

In 1992, the late-March Connecticut primary fell one week after Clinton scored decisive victories in Illinois and Michigan, outcomes that led Paul Tsongas -- who had been drubbed by Clinton on Super Tuesday a week earlier -- to “suspend” his candidacy (meaning that he kept his delegates and his name stayed on ballots). That left Jerry Brown, who was waging his third presidential campaign, as Clinton’s sole remaining challenger. After a rocky start to the primary season, Clinton finally seemed to have the nomination in his grasp.

And then Connecticut handed Brown, who was demanding a 13-percent flat income tax and who never missed an opportunity to tout his toll-free campaign donation line, a truly stunning victory, 37 to 36 percent. The inactive Tsongas took the remaining 27 percent.

The Connecticut result reopened all of the questions about Clinton’s character and the party’s willingness to embrace him as its standard-bearer and turned New York’s primary, which was held two weeks later, into a critical test of Clinton’s acceptability Democrats.

Connecticut also sided with the insurgent candidate in 1984, when it voted for Gary Hart over Walter Mondale. But the victory didn’t help Hart much: He’d already demonstrated strong appeal among New England liberals (he swept the six New England states) and winning Connecticut did little to ease the sting from his demoralizing loss to Mondale in Illinois the week before -- nor did it give him a boost heading into New York, where he lost handily to Mondale a week later.

The 1980 primary fell on the same day as New York, with both states favoring Ted Kennedy over Jimmy Carter, delivering a major boost to the slow-starting Kennedy campaign. The renewed energy gave Kennedy openings in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but when he failed to post follow-up triumphs (he lost Wisconsin and won a narrow and insufficiently convincing victory in Pennsylvania), momentum shifted back to Carter, who then scored solid wins in North Carolina, Indiana and Tennessee the next week, making him the clear favorite on the Democratic side.

Four years before that, Carter won Connecticut over Arizona Congressman Mo Udall, one of countless states in which the good-humored Udall came agonizingly close to victory. The early May ’76 primary amounted to Udall’s last stand, although it also marked the beginning of an unexpected phase of the nomination battle: The next week, Jerry Brown entered the race and drubbed Carter in Maryland, setting off a furious one-month sprint by the California governor that nearly toppled the front-running Carter.

Republicans

There have been three meaningful Republican contests in Connecticut, and twice, the state’s Republicans -- who hold a closed primary -- have sided with insurgents.

The first instance of this came in 1980, when George H.W., the son of former Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush, a child of Greenwich, and a product of Yale, nipped Ronald Reagan, 39 to 34 percent in late March. Reagan had entered the day as the clear G.O.P. favorite and handily won New York even as he was falling short in Connecticut. Bush’s victory gave his campaign just enough justification to press on, and a few weeks later he did manage an upset win in Pennsylvania that momentarily threw the nomination battle into doubt -- until Reagan posted commanding wins in Indiana, North Carolina and Tennessee.

The ’80 results also helped nudge liberal Illinois Congressman John Anderson, who finished in third with 22 percent, further from the G.O.P. race and toward the independent campaign on which he embarked a few weeks later.

The other time Connecticut’s Republicans rallied to the insurgent was in 2000, when the state was part of that year’s Super Tuesday. On the whole, Super Tuesday was decisive for George W. Bush, who racked up overwhelming victories across the country, knocking John McCain from the race. But it was a different story in the Northeast, where McCain carried several states, including Connecticut, whose Republicans-only primary electorate handed the supposedly disloyal Arizonan a 48 to 46 percent win.

In 1996, the only other consequential Connecticut primary, Republicans favored the establishment candidate -- but not enthusiastically. Bob Dole won the state with 54 percent, to Steve Forbes’ 20 percent and Pat Buchanan’s 15 percent. It was one of the eight “Junior Tuesday” states (five New England states plus Colorado, Maryland and Georgia) that Dole swept, positioning the Kansan to seal the nomination on Super Tuesday the following week. But exit polls found most Connecticut Republicans simply viewed Dole as the least unacceptable candidate in an underwhelming field.

NEW YORK

Democrats

New York, much more than its neighbors, has played host to some of the more intense skirmishes on the Democratic side in the modern era. This is partly due to the calendar: For many years, New York held its primary in late March or early April, one of the first big tests for the candidates after Super Tuesday.

This was the case in 1992, when Bill Clinton came wheezing into the state. After weathering a string of scandals and momentarily losing the front-runner’s mantle to Paul Tsongas, Clinton had put his campaign back on track by calling himself “the Comeback Kid” and sweeping the South -- including Florida and Texas -- on Super Tuesday. When he won huge wins in Illinois and Michigan a week later, Tsongas suspended his campaign and the nomination appeared to be Clinton’s.

But then, out of nowhere, Jerry Brown stunned Clinton in Connecticut. And Tsongas, who retained his delegates and kept his place on state ballots, reeled in 27 percent. The result was taken as a signal that Democrats still had doubts about Clinton’s electability and weren’t prepared to anoint him as their standard-bearer.

New York was declared a referendum on Clinton: If he lost, Tsongas would re-enter the race and a queasy Democratic establishment would either give him a second look or find a new candidate -- like Mario Cuomo, who had seemed to take himself out of the running three months earlier when he’d left a New Hampshire-bound airplane idling on a runway in Albany. Few believed that the rebellious Brown, who lagged badly in the delegate count and was shunned by the party’s establishment, could win the nomination on his own, but a win for him in New York would have made him a powerful shareholder at the convention -- and would have derailed Clinton.

In the end, Brown and Tsongas combined to receive 55 percent of the vote, but they split it evenly (29 percent for Tsongas and 26 percent for Brown) and Clinton sailed to victory with 41 percent, a performance that mollified most of his intra-party critics. Tsongas stayed on the sidelines and Brown played out the remaining string of primaries, generally losing to Clinton by two-to-one margins, or worse.

The ‘88 primary was similarly decisive, settling a three-way race between Michael Dukakis, Jesse Jackson and Al Gore. Dukakis had finished a strong third in Iowa, won New Hampshire, and posted wins in all regions of the country on Super Tuesday, emerging as the national front-runner. But he had followed that up with big losses in Illinois (to favorite son Paul Simon, who had otherwise suspended his campaign) and Michigan (to Jackson, in a true surprise). Dukakis then notched a badly-needed win in Wisconsin to enter New York with an opportunity to satisfy the media and party faithful that he was the inevitable nominee.

Jackson arrived in New York with a legitimate chance of winning. He’d won six states on Super Tuesday, improving his showing among white voters from 1984. And when he followed that up with a Michigan landslide, establishment figures began to ask, for the first time ever, if Jackson might actually win the nomination. Dukakis’ Wisconsin win sapped Jackson of some momentum, turning New York into a must-win state for Jackson.

Gore, after ignoring all of the early states, became a player courtesy of a strong showing in the South on Super Tuesday. But he failed to roll that success into Wisconsin, turning New York into his last chance to escape the regional candidate label.

For two weeks, the political world was essentially based in New York. Ed Koch delivered a surprise endorsement of Gore and missed no opportunity to excoriate Jackson, reminding Jewish voters of Jackson’s “Hymietown” comment from 1984. Koch’s divisive tactics didn’t help Gore, who wound up with only 10 percent, but they did help to drive a wedge into the Democratic electorate that limited Jackson’s appeal. Dukakis won the primary with 51 percent, ahead of Jackson’s 37 percent. Jackson hung around through the convention, but the race was never again in doubt.

The ‘84 and ‘80 primaries also impacted the national race, though they weren’t decisive.

In ’84, Walter Mondale beat Gary Hart by an unexpectedly wide margin (45 to 27 percent, with Jackson at 25 percent). The win cemented Mondale’s regained front-runnerhood, which he had lost after a 13-point defeat to Hart in New Hampshire. Hart had an opportunity to finish Mondale off after New Hampshire on Super Tuesday, but Mondale eked out wins in Georgia and Alabama that day, a surprising outcome that rejuvenated his effort. He then won Illinois a week later, suggesting that momentum had moved back to his side. Winning New York put Mondale back in firm control of the Democratic race, although Hart ultimately mounted a second charge in the late spring primaries before falling short.

Four years before that, New York breathed new life into challenger Ted Kennedy’s bid to unseat Jimmy Carter, who had seized a clear advantage with a series of early victories. But Kennedy, keyed in part by overwhelming support from Jewish voters, righted his campaign with a 59-41 percent win in New York. On the same day, he won Connecticut too. The combined effect of these two wins was to give Kennedy a fresh crack at Carter, with upcoming contests in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania offering him a chance to grab the momentum. But Carter beat back Kennedy in Wisconsin and Kennedy won only a razor-thin victory in Pennsylvania that was seen as a moral victory for Carter. Carter then pulled away in the delegate count as the race shifted to Southern, pro-Carter turf.

New York Democrats also rejected Carter in 1976, handing their primary to Henry “Scoop” Jackson. But Jackson was already a dead man walking by the time New York voted, so the real damage wasn’t to Carter -- who was already the national front-runner and who ended up winning Wisconsin on the same day -- but to Morris Udall, who was desperately trying to unite the left for a one-on-one contest with Carter. By losing New York to Jackson, Udall was denied a meaningful victory and was also forced to contend with Jackson for several more weeks. In a way, New York was actually a win for Carter in 1976.

Republicans

The three times it has mattered before, New York’s Republican presidential primary has been marred by arcane rules that have rigged the process in favor the party establishment’s candidate.

The first instance was in 1980, when the party establishment -- which could essentially pick the primary winner, thanks to a confusing ballot and onerous signature requirements -- lined up with Ronald Reagan, who demolished George H.W. Bush in the state’s delegate count. New York could have been fertile ground for the more moderate Bush, and New York’s primary fell on the same day that Bush narrowly beat Reagan in Connecticut. A New York win, or at least a respectable showing, might have turned the day into a clear victory for Bush, but instead Reagan was seen as the main beneficiary.

Led by Al D’Amato, Republicans played the same game in 1996, lining up behind D’Amato’s Senate colleague, Bob Dole. And D’Amato took it a step further, trying to deny Steve Forbes and Pat Buchanan spots on the ballot, a gambit that turned into a public relations disaster for D’Amato and the Dole campaign and that ended with a judge interceding on the other candidates’ behalf. But the process still favored the establishment, and Dole swept New York’s 93 delegates. The ‘96 primary was sandwiched between “Junior Tuesday” -- in which Dole won all eight states -- and Super Tuesday, when another Dole sweep locked up the nomination. New York was hardly pivotal, but it did nothing to hurt the front-runner’s momentum.

The race was closer in 2000, when John McCain survived a vigorous petition challenge from George Pataki’s Republican State Committee, which was seeking to grease the skids for George W. Bush. McCain, who won several other Northeast states on the same day, lost New York to Bush by 50 to 44 percent on Super Tuesday, with Bush gobbling up most of the delegates. Bush lopsidedly won most Super Tuesday states and McCain withdrew the next day.

The 2000 experience prompted a reform of the G.O.P. balloting process. Candidates no longer have to petition for ballot access and voters no longer cast ballots for slates of unknown delegates -- they now get to check off the names of actual candidates.