The Miss New Jersey competition is an annual pageant held to select the representative for the state of New Jersey in the Miss America pageant. Two Miss New Jersey winners have gone on to hold the title of Miss America: Bette Cooper who won in 1937 and Suzette Charles who did not win, but took over the title for the last 7 weeks of Vanessa Williams's reign in 1984. They also have one unofficial Miss America: Dorothy Hann (1932). In the fall of 2018, the Miss America Organization terminated the Miss New Jersey organization's license as well as licenses from Florida, Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia. On December 26, 2018; MAO reinstated the license for the Miss New Jersey organization for one year, contingent on leadership changes and the recruitment of new sponsors and board members. Elizabeth Mendel was crowned Miss New Jersey 2024 on June 8, 2024, at the Superstar Theater in the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She will compete for the title of Miss America 2025.

Gallery of past titleholders

Results summary

The following is a visual summary of the past results of Miss New Jersey titleholders at the national Miss America pageants/competitions. The year in parentheses indicates the year of the national competition during which a placement and/or award was garnered, not the year attached to the contestant's state title.

Placements

Awards

Preliminary awards

Non-finalist awards

Other awards

Winners

Declared as winner Ended as a runner-up Ended as a finalist or semi-finalist

Popular culture

In Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "American Pastoral", the central character Seymour "Swede" Levov marries Dawn Dwyer, an Irish Catholic winner of Miss New Jersey 1949, from nearby Elizabeth, whom he met at Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey. In the Drake & Josh episode "Vicious Tiberius", the boys find out their teacher, Mrs. Hayfer, was the winner of Miss New Jersey 1976 while house sitting for her. The winner of the 1957 pageant is mentioned by title in the Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver.