Quinnipiac poll on state issues

by: Hopeful

Thu Oct 15, 2009 at 10:14:22 AM EDT

But first, the other horserace. The State Legislature approval-disapprove numbers are bad: 25-62. I'd say people know who controls the Senate and Assembly too: Republican voters are at 10-78, independents at 17-73, and Democrats  at 44-41. Just 3% of likely voters are "very satisfied" with "the way things are going in New Jersey." Total satified-dissatified with New Jersey is 32-67. How many Assembly races will these numbers affect? There's no generic ballot in this poll.  

President Obama's job approval is at 55-40, so his slide has stopped.  

Considering solutions to the budget crisis and other problems, Quinnipiac ran a number of possible policies by the voters.

Policy	Support	Oppose
Mergers	65	28
Increase Gas Tax	36	61
Layoffs/Furloughs	51	43
Pay More Health Care	69	25
Broaden Sales Tax	35	61
Cut Business Tax	56	38
School Vouchers	46	52
Charter Schools	42	49

It might worth your while to click through and lok at the exact wording. I think we'll see a lot of quotes of the first result, but I suspect one reason merging school districts and towns scores so well is the way it was asked:

One recommendation to raise the money needed to fund a cut in property taxes is to merge neighboring municipal governments and school districts. Would you support or oppose merging school districts or governments in the county in which you live if it meant lowering your property taxes?

So this question literally promises a property tax cut if you say yes. In contrast, other policies are linked to "balancing the budget." The disconnect with policy is that policiticians can promise tax cuts but are required to balance the budget.  

I don't understand why Quinnipiac asked "To help balance the state budget do you support or oppose - layoffs or furloughs for state employees?" These are two different policies. Our state unions by large majorities voted in favor of furloughs, to avoid layoffs. Workers paying more for their health care is popular and already started in the new contract.

The vouchers/charter school questions emphasize that they are paid for with tax money -- which is absolutely true but not something you'll hear Republicans say much. Cutting business taxes is asked on its own, no mention of the budget or cutting spending to compendate.

One thing that is striking is that despite Daggett's surge in the polls, his plan to broaden the sales tax scores poorly. Of course, he's only at 14%.

There are also questions about the schools. You'll have to click through  to read them, or maybe someone will work up another post.