Paul Troast, a wealthy building contractor from Passaic, New Jersey lost the republican primary for the 1953 New Jersey gubernatorial with Malcolm Forbes coming in ahead of him.
Seven major candidates had run in the primary, with Troast beating second place candidate Malcolm Forbes by 47,000 votes. In 1953, Troast won the Republican nomination for Governor of New Jersey and faced Robert B. Meyner, a little-known one-term former member of the New Jersey Senate who had been chosen by a Democratic Party that was largely dysfunctional and hadn't been successful in getting a candidate elected to statewide office since 1940. 
