The major party candidates were Democratic Vice President Al Gore of the incumbent administration and Republican Governor of Texas George W. Bush, son of the 41st U.S. president, George H. W. Bush.

Although New Jersey had voted for Democrat Bill Clinton in the past two elections (1992 and 1996),[1] it was considered a potential swing state in 2000 because pre-election polling data showed it to be a close race.

[2][3] Al Gore won 56 percent of New Jersey's popular vote, beating out George W. Bush by about a sixteen-point margin, with Gore's biggest margins of victory in Essex County and Hudson County where he won over seventy percent of the vote.

Bush became the first Republican to win without Union County since James A. Garfield in 1880.

Gore won 11 of 13 congressional districts, including four that elected Republicans.