A Round-up of PPP's New Jersey poll

by: Hopeful

Thu Sep 17, 2009 at 04:15:00 PM EDT

The horse race: They have Corzine-Christie-Daggett at 35-44-13. Not much to say, except that maybe Daggett is surging. This poll is a bit worse than some others, but does show improvement from the previous PPP poll. PPP notes that 47% of Daggett voters say they might change their mind, so there's plenty of room to fade to a more typical third-party result.

The Republican Dream  Voter Universe:  If the 2009 likely voters had determined 2008, Obama would have won in a 48-46 squeeker (and with the margin of error, McCain might even have won.) In other words, current likely voter polls are based on the Republican dream electorate.

The Persuadable Voters are Unhappy Democrats. I'll just quote PPP's Tom Jensen on the 28% of voters who are undecided or say might change their minds:

Those persuadable voters are a pretty Democratic leaning group. They voted for Barack Obama 53-36 last year, supported Corzine 56-29 in 2005, and 39% of them are Democrats compared to just 20% who are Republicans.

You'd think all that would add up to them being more inclined to vote for Corzine. But 61% of them have an unfavorable opinion of him. Of course 44% of them have an unfavorable opinion of Christie too, which is why a lot of them say they're planning to vote for Daggett right now.

Barack Obama's decline in approval (now at 45% for "likely voters", see above) is linked to moderates and conservatives. He's at a staggering 98% approval among liberal Democrats. Well, it's staggering if you read Open Left like I do.

Booker or Pallone instead of Corzine. PPP tested two alternative candidates, though obviously people who aren't running for governor are at a disadvantage because they haven't been able to get a message out. Pallone faired even worse than Corzine, getting only 23% of the vote against Christie. I'd say most people don't know who he is, but plainly he should do a little work on his statewide image if he ever runs for Senate.  Cory Booker also trails Christie for this year in the hypothetic matchup, but he is well positioned for a future statewide run:

Booker is a far more intriguing possibility. 41% of voters view him favorably, nine points better than Corzine, and only 20% have an unfavorable opinion of him, 40 points lower than the current Governor. Booker's popularity is such that he's even viewed positively, 29/27, by a small plurality of Republicans. He's only the fifth Democratic politician PPP has found that to be the case for across the entire country in 2009.

It doesn't look like Booker's race would be an issue. 40% of whites view him favorably compared to 21% unfavorable. That's far better than Corzine's numbers (25/67) and Barack Obama's (37/55). And while Booker may have been accused in some quarters of being an 'Uncle Tom' during his campaigns for mayor of Newark, only 5% of African Americans statewide have a negative opinion of him.

I'd back Booker in 2013.