2013 United States gubernatorial elections

2013 United States gubernatorial elections
← 2012 November 5, 2013 2014 →
2 governorships
  Majority party Minority party
 
Party Republican Democratic
Seats before 30 20
Seats after 29 21
Seat change Decrease 1 Increase 1
Popular vote 2,292,286[1] 1,879,767[1]
Percentage 52.53%[1] 43.08%[1]
Seats up 2 0
Seats won 1 1
2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election2013 Virginia gubernatorial election
Map of the results
     Democratic gain
     Republican hold
     No election

United States gubernatorial elections were held on November 5, 2013 in New Jersey and Virginia. These elections formed part of the 2013 United States elections. Before the elections, both seats were held by Republicans. Republican incumbent Chris Christie won reelection in New Jersey, while in Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe won the open seat held by term-limited Republican Bob McDonnell.

This was the first time since 1985 that Virginia and New Jersey elected governors of different parties. As of 2024, this is the last time that a Republican won the governorship in New Jersey.

Election predictions

Several sites and individuals publish predictions of competitive seats. These predictions look at factors such as the strength of the incumbent (if the incumbent is running for re-election), the strength of the candidates, and the partisan leanings of the state (reflected in part by the state's Cook Partisan Voting Index rating). The predictions assign ratings to each state, with the rating indicating the predicted advantage that a party has in winning that seat.

Most election predictors use:

  • "tossup": no advantage
  • "tilt" (used by some predictors): advantage that is not quite as strong as "lean"
  • "lean": slight advantage
  • "likely": significant, but surmountable, advantage
  • "safe" or "solid": near-certain chance of victory
State PVI Incumbent[2] Last
race 		IE
Oct 25,
2013[3] 		Sabato
Oct 24,
2013[4] 		Result
New Jersey D+6 Chris Christie 48.5% R Solid R Safe R Christie
60.3% R
Virginia EVEN Bob McDonnell (term-limited) 58.6% R Lean D (flip) Likely D (flip) McAuliffe
47.8% D (flip)

Race summary

State Incumbent Party First
elected 		Result Candidates
New Jersey Chris Christie Republican 2009 Incumbent re-elected.
Virginia Bob McDonnell Republican 2009 Incumbent term-limited.
New governor elected.
Democratic gain.

Closest races

States where the margin of victory was under 5%:

  1. Virginia, 2.6%

Blue denotes states won by Democrats.

New Jersey

2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election
← 2009 November 5, 2013 (2013-11-05) 2017 →
 
Nominee Chris Christie Barbara Buono
Party Republican Democratic
Popular vote 1,278,932 809,978
Percentage 60.3% 38.2%
County results
Governor before election

Chris Christie
Republican

Elected Governor

Chris Christie
Republican

Main article: 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election

Governor Chris Christie ran for a second term.[5] Christie's re-election campaign could be the prelude to a 2016 presidential campaign for him.[6]

Christie's approval ratings have hovered at or above 50% consistently throughout 2012, and broke records as the highest approval rating of any New Jersey governor in a recent Fairleigh Dickinson poll.[7][8][9]

State Senator and former State Senate Democratic Leader Barbara Buono was the Democratic nominee.[10]

The Libertarian nominee was Ken Kaplan, who also ran for U.S. Senator in 2012.[11]

Chris Christie cruised to victory on November 5, 2013 when he won in a landslide victory against his adversary, Barbara Buono. Christie won 60.4% of the vote compared to 38.1% of the vote Buono earned. Exit polls also showed that Christie appealed to ethnic minorities, an increasing priority for Republicans.[12]

New Jersey general election[13]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Chris Christie (incumbent) 1,278,932 60.30
Democratic Barbara Buono 809,978 38.19
Libertarian Kenneth R. Kaplan 12,155 0.57
Green Steve Welzer 8,295 0.39
Independent Diane W. Sare 3,360 0.16
Peace and Freedom William Araujo 3,300 0.16
Independent Hank Schroeder 2,784 0.13
Independent Jeff Boss 2,062 0.10
Total votes 2,120,866 100.00
Republican hold

Virginia

2013 Virginia gubernatorial election
← 2009 November 5, 2013 (2013-11-05) 2017 →
 
Nominee Terry McAuliffe Ken Cuccinelli Robert Sarvis
Party Democratic Republican Libertarian
Popular vote 1,069,789 1,013,354 146,084
Percentage 47.8% 45.2% 6.5%
County and independent city results
Governor before election

Bob McDonnell
Republican

Elected Governor

Terry McAuliffe
Democratic

Main article: 2013 Virginia gubernatorial election
See also: 2013 Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial election

Governor Bob McDonnell was term-limited in 2013, as Governors of Virginia cannot serve consecutive terms.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was the Republican nominee for Governor, after winning the nomination at Virginia's 2013 Republican Party convention.[14]

Terry McAuliffe, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was the Democratic nominee for Governor, after being the only candidate to file for the race.[15]

Robert Sarvis, an entrepreneur and lawyer, was the Libertarian Party nominee. On June 26, 2013, the Virginia State Board of Elections confirmed to Sarvis's campaign that he would be listed on the ballot statewide during the elections this November.[16]

On November 5, 2013, Terry McAuliffe narrowly beat Ken Cuccinelli by a margin of 48% to 45.5% with Robert Sarvis accounting for the other 6.6% of the vote.[17]

Virginia general election[18]
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Terry McAuliffe 1,069,789 47.75
Republican Ken Cuccinelli 1,013,354 45.23
Libertarian Robert Sarvis 146,084 6.52
Write-in 11,087 0.49
Total votes 2,240,314 100.00
Democratic gain from Republican

References

  1. ^ a b c d "2013 Gubernatorial Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved Aug 3, 2014.
  2. ^ Parentheses around an incumbent's name indicates that the incumbent is retiring, possibly due to term limits.
  3. ^ "Gubernatorial Ratings | Inside Elections". www.insideelections.com.
  4. ^ "Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » RATINGS CHANGE: A DEMOCRATIC TIDE IN VIRGINIA". centerforpolitics.org.
  5. ^ Steinhauser, Paul (November 26, 2012). "Chris Christie files for re-election bid". CNN. Archived from the original on November 28, 2012. Retrieved November 26, 2012.
  6. ^ Rubin, Jennifer (1 May 2013). "Christie will cruise to reelection. Then what?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  7. ^ Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-Ledger (8 May 2012). "Gov. Christie's approval rate highest ever among N.J. residents". NJ.com. Retrieved 2012-11-05.
  8. ^ "Christie's Approval Rating Rises to Record in Voter Poll". Businessweek. 2012-04-11. Archived from the original on April 13, 2012. Retrieved 2012-11-05.
  9. ^ "Monmouth Poll: Christie approval rating at 51%". Politicker NJ. Retrieved 2012-11-05.
  10. ^ "U.S. News | National News – ABC News". Abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 2013-10-16.[dead link‍]
  11. ^ Lesiak, Krzysztof (2013-05-04). "Libertarian Kenneth Kaplan to Run for Governor of New Jersey in 2013". Independent Political Report. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  12. ^ "New Jersey Governor – 2013 Election Results". The New York Times.
  13. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 29, 2017. Retrieved July 2, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. ^ Associated, The (2013-05-18). "Ken Cuccinelli nominated for governor by Virginia GOP". Wjla.com. Archived from the original on 2013-12-09. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
  15. ^ Walker, Julian (April 2, 2013). "McAuliffe named Dem governor nominee, 4 others make ballot". The Virginian-Pilot. Archived from the original on May 22, 2013. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
  16. ^ "Libertarian Candidate Robert Sarvis Makes the Ballot in Virginia Governor's Race". Charlottesville Newsplex. 2013-06-26. Archived from the original on 2013-06-29. Retrieved 2013-06-26.
  17. ^ "Virginia Governor – 2013 Election Results". The New York Times.
  18. ^ "Virginia Elections Database » Search Elections".