Presidents winning without their home state?

Answer 1

There have been three U. S. Presidential Elections to date in which the winner did not carry his own home state:

• 1844 - James K. Polk of Tennessee
• 1916 - Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey
• 1968 - Richard Nixon of New York

There have been five elections in which two major-party candidates had the same home state; the winner had that state's votes in each case.

Nixon had been a U. S. Senator from California, California was his home state when he ran for Vice President in 1952 and 1956 and when he ran for President in 1960, and he was the Republican candidate for California Governor in 1962. In fact, it was on Election Day, 1962, after losing that election, that he said his famous quote to the press, "You don't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference...." After his "retirement" from politics, he opened a law practice in New York. I was too young at the time to remember, but it's quite possible that under the circumstances New York did not think of him as their own. He did receive California's votes in 1968.