In fact, according to an analysis by the New York Times' Nate Silver, he's got good company among the right-wing crop of Governors elected in 2010 that Christie's election in 2009 presaged.
Rick Scott (Florida), John Kasich (Ohio), George LePage (Maine), Scott Walker (Wisconsin), and Tom Corbett (Pennsylvania), all new Republican governors in 2010, are all even more unpopular than Christie. Rick Snyder (Michigan) and Rick Perry (Texas - reelected in 2010) are doing just a bit better than Christie.
Democrats, on the whole, are significantly more popular - 11 of the 14 most popular Governors are Democrats, while 14 of the 17 least popular Governors are Republicans. Incredible, huh? Silver's explanation is that Republicans in more moderate-to-left states like NJ, FL, and WI govern the same as in extreme states, while Democrats adapt their policies to the political leanings of their states.
Yesterday, Blue Jersey's own Senator Loretta Weinberg, one of the women legislators he has openly insulted, asked some of the same questions in an Open Letter to Gov. Chris Christie.
Today, in case you didn't catch it, this is how Star-Ledger's editorial board illustrates - perfectly - the hostility Gov. Chris Christie has shown to New Jersey women legislators who dare to disagree with him. And, at the same time, an depiction of the gender gap between how men view the way Christie's doing his job, and the way women do. Star-Ledger's graphic is titled: Hey, Christie, what is it about women?
New Jersey residents are divided on Governor Chris Christie's job performance and his ratings have dropped since the last Monmouth University/NJ Press Media Poll in February. He now stands at 47% approve to 49% disapprove among all state residents. Among registered voters, he has a 46% positive to 49% negative job rating.
The change in Christie's rating comes mainly from the number of people who shifted from having no opinion of the governor a few months ago to holding a negative view today.
This is the third poll this month with Christie back under 50% approval and surging disapproval. What's going on? Pollster Patrick Murray points to the continuing budget problems. I too think that after 18 months the incumbent governor starts to own the problems. But I think still think that his bullying and rightward shift to appeal to other states' Republican Presidential primary voters is also hurting him.
The sample has 807 New Jersey adults and a margin of error of 3.5%. You might be amused to see they polled on the governor's "YouTube" town hall performances. I should point out that the legislature, which will actually be on the ballot this year, still polls poorly (33% approve, 47% disapprove) but there's nothing new in that.
Conservatives have loved to point to Chris Christie as a "popular" governor polling above 50%, but today a William J. Hughes Center Poll (PDF) confirms that Christie would get crushed by Obama for President and is trouble even for re-election:
"When we asked about a hypothetical campaign between President Obama and Gov. Christie, voters favored Obama over Christie by 51% to 33.5%," said Hughes Center Executive Director Sharon Schulman. "We also asked if they agreed or disagreed that Christie should run for President in 2012, 68.8% of the voters somewhat or strongly disagreed with him running."
...NJ voters were slightly positive on their overall opinion of Christie in general (48.8% favorable vs. 45.4% unfavorable). When asked if the election for NJ governor was held today would they vote to re-elect Christie, voters were evenly split at 44.6% "yes" and 44.1%
This is a poll of 1,000 likely voters, so Christie would probably do worse amongst a wider sample. Many voters said Christie's confrontational style has alienated them.
65.6% of voters view President Obama "favorably" or "somewhat favorably."
The latest poll from Survey USA tells us we won't be hearing about how popular New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is for long:
New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, beloved by some and despised by others for his bluntness, has a Minus 18 job approval today as speculation continues about whether Christie should run for President. 38% of NJ adults approve of the job Christie is doing, 56% disapprove.
According to this latest Eyewitness News Poll conducted by SurveyUSA exclusively for WABC-TV in New York City, NJ voters by 5:1 say Christie should not run for President.
* By 2:1, NJ voters say Christie would be a worse president than Barack Obama.
* Obama carried NJ in 2008 by 15 points. Obama's approval rating in NJ today is Plus 14 (54% approve, 40% disapprove).
* Voters split evenly on whether Christie would be better president than George W. Bush.
The poll is of 700 New Jersey adults including cell phone users. Christie probably would do a bit better excluding non-voters (but journalists shouldn't forget that their opinions exist.) He can also take solace that he's at +49 with Tea Party supporters, but I think his attempts to appeal to Republican Presidential primary voters are hurting him with everyone else in New Jersey. He's at a terrible minus 23 with self-identified moderates.
Rasmussen has a remarkable new poll out in which they report that Chris Christie would "definitely" get 30% of the Republican primary vote. 30% in a field of 18 candidates -- sounds impressive. Sadly for Governor Christie, Republican voters have a lot of "definite" plans: Rasmussen tells us the top eight named candidates are going to get 195% of the vote, and there a few more "definite" votes lurking in the lower tier of candidates. Diebold programmers take note, you may be on overtime next year!
After becoming less positive following introduction of the budget, New Jersey voters remain split on their impression of Gov. Chris Christie, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll. While 44 percent of registered voters give the governor a favorable rating, 42 percent view him unfavorably and 14 percent have no opinion. In February, 46 percent viewed the governor favorably and 44 percent unfavorably.
Professor Redlawsk believes Christie went down after his budget address and never recovered the lost popularity. Christie himself seems to think he was taken into the hearts of the people, but maybe he was just lying.
President Obama is at 55-32. Senator Menendez is at 32-24. Senator Lautenberg is at 38-28. These numbers are characteristic of New Jersey. More people support the Libya action than oppose it.
There is also a discussion, which you may or may not find interesting, how different descriptions of job performance can be perceived differently. (Is "fair" bad? Is a "C" bad?)
Jeff is the Council candidate in Flemington. - promoted by Rosi
As reported this morning, the Governor won't support legislation that would allow for self-serve gasoline in New Jersey. His reason: the residents don't support it.
This is huge news, Blue Jerseyers!
It means that the governor can actually listen to the people!
So how many things should we now expect the Christie to support, since the majority of New Jersey residents are for them:
Marriage equality?
Reproductive health rights?
Stopping effort to tie teacher pay to test scores?
Funding for women's health care?
End cuts to local school districts?
Sports gambling?
A great day Blue Jersey! Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land!
What a happy day for New Jersey political junkies: We got releases of both the Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Press Media Poll PDF, plus or minus 3.5 percent) and the Quinnipiac poll (plus or minus 2.7 percent.) They agree quite well.
It's a pretty good day for Governor Christie too, with favorable-unfavorable job ratings of of 49-41 (Monmouth), or 52-40 (Quinnipiac.) amongst New Jersey registered voters. That's great agreement. You may have seen a Republican "internal poll" being touted recently; as usual, it was about 7 points more favorable to those releasing it than a neutral party. In Quinnipac, 51% say Christie's first year is mainly a success and only 35% say mainly a failure; In Monmouth, they find 25% think he has "major accomplishments", 39% "minor accomplishments," and 34% say "no real accomplishments." Same thing, different phrasing.
We can have some fun looking at the results of a statewide poll of New Jersey by Public Policy Polling. Along with approval ratings for the major figures, they provide head-to-head numbers for future races. There are 520 "New Jersey voters" for an estimated margin of error of 4.3%.
Those numbers are actually misleadingly good for Christie though. 21% of Democrats are undecided in such a match up while only 7% of Republicans are. That's probably a reflection of 38% of voters in the state still not having an opinion about Booker.
Uh-oh. Bad numbers for the re-match. On the other hand, PPP observes that 51% of voters don't know who Kean is. I'll go further and suggest that if so many don't know who he is, some must think Kean Jr. is his popular father -- even though I wouldn't have guessed it.
Obama may be weak at the moment but it seems that even a local Republican would get crushed. Gingrich, Huckabee, and Romney all do about the same as Christie.
To the degree you take such early polls seriously, we can conclude that New Jersey's 14 electoral votes will go to Obama without a battle, Menendez might be vulnerable, and Christie can be defeated.
We are out today with our third and final poll of the NJ third congressional district race between Democratic incumbent John Adler and Republican challenger Jon Runyan. Oh, and don't forget purported "Tea Party" candidate Peter DeStefano. The upshot? It's tied. All locked up. 44-44. No space between the two candidates. At least among those we believe to be likely voters. And DeStefano - his 4-5 percent could be making the difference.
Professor Redlawsk discussess the cell phone issue (Rutgers polls land lines only), party unity (Democrats more united), donkeys (even Republicans bothered by their use as a tax dodge), the enthusiasm gap (helps Runyan), desire for an outsider (that would be Runyan) and DeStefano (helping Adler at 5%, but also provoking a backlash.)
Obviously the combination of two small Runyan leads and an exact tie is still a narrow Runyan lead, but it looks too close to call. Redlawsk suggests the key to Democratic victory is turnout of registered Democrats. That's why we see President Obama pushing supporters to volunteer to contact voters. You can even do it online.
Polls: love 'em or hate 'em, but there is also more than one way to read 'em. A trend analysis which takes a longer view and accounts for changes in both approval and disapproval on the above two matters - Christie's approval rating and holding the line on spending - provides a significantly different opinion than that which the newspaper heralds.
The governor's approval rating has ranged from 52% to 43%. Since March 3, 2010, the reporting date of the first Fairleigh Dickinson poll after Christie took office, his approval rating worsened 1%, from 52% on March 3 to 51% now. His disapproval rating worsened 16%, from 21% to 37%. The net total damage to his approval is 17%. As time went on more respondents left the "unsure" or "I do not know" category and joined the disapproval category.
Since March 3 on the issue of "the state should hold the line on spending even if many programs are reduced," Christie's position worsened by 6%, from 66% on March 3 to 60% now. On the opposite issue of "the state should raise taxes if necessary and continue to support state programs," the governor's position worsened by 1% from 21% to 22% - net damage to his position 7%.
In spite of the fact that 51% approve his job performance and 60% support holding the line and reducing programs, the current trend is not favorable to Governor Christie. Be not of faint heart. The headline in this case may be positive for him but the bottom line trend is less so.
The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Press Media Poll (PDF) have given us the second poll of New Jersey's Third Congressional District this week, and it looks just like Eagleton's (41-39) poll :
More voters approve than disapprove of the job freshman Congressman John Adler is doing, but enough voters are looking for change in Washington that challenger Jon Runyan is within striking distance.
With five weeks to go before Election Day, the poll of likely voters found the incumbent with a narrow lead within the poll's margin of error - 42% for Democrat Adler to 39% for Republican Runyan, with 13% undecided. Adler leads by 48% to 35% in the Burlington and Camden Counties portion of the district, while Runyan has a 44% to 34% advantage among Ocean County voters.
In related questions, Adler's job approval is 49-34. DeStefano is at 4%. Click through to see various breakdowns on issues, which are all pretty even. (Also, see third poll below the break.)
Still, as the release below shows, Adler is in reasonable position for an incumbent Democrat in a marginal seat given the prevailing winds of 2010. He seems to be so because most likely voters in the district actually say they prefer experience over an outsider and because he is seen somewhat more favorably than is his opponent Republican Jon Runyan.
He has a detailed discussion of the likely voter screen. The likely voter sample is 41-39-6 for Adler-Runyan-DeStafano. Adler has a nine point lead 40-31-6 with registered voters. Turnout looks to be killing Democrats, as Obama's twitter feed suggested yesterday:
The other side is counting on you staying home this Nov. They're counting on your silence. They are betting on your apathy. Prove them wrong
We're fortunate that Rutgers Professor David Redlawsk has arranged for the first independent poll of poll of the NJ3 Congressional Race, widely believed to be the most (only?) competitive one this year. Incumbent John Adler, who has positioned himself as a conservative Democrat, faces Jon Runyan, who is a famous football player but so far seems to know very little about policy. The full PDF is available here. The headline is that Representative Adler leads in the poll, although with only 421 registered voters the margin of error is an uncomfortably larger 4.8 percent.
There are other permutations of the question, but I think these are two most important. On the one hand, Adler is ahead. On the other, he is way under 50%, a sign of danger for an incumbent. In July, Adler released an internal poll where he lead by 17 (51-34) Statistically, such poll announcements favor the releaser by an extra 6-7% or so. (That is, Adler or Runyan would only release polls that happen to show unusually large/lucky leads, while our faithful Professor releases all results.) 17-7=10, so you might call the polls in good agreement with my proposed correction. Runyan has not released anything, so it now does seem likely Adler is ahead.
Other "generic" polls of New Jersey suggest that other Democratic incuments should be fine:
A new FDU/Public Mind poll was released today that trumpets how New Jerseyans want to "hold the line on spending", and then spends the first three paragraphs of their summary discussing this, even though there were a mere two questions on the state budget in the poll. What makes this worse is that one is the generic "how much have you heard about the state budget?" and the other is a loaded question in light of Governor Christie publicly bashing all spending and government programs, teachers unions, and anything related to public employees for the past 6 months.
It would be nice if FDU actually asked questions that got to the substance of the state budget issue before a declaration that New Jersey voters want to "hold the line on spending". For example, the one question asked the following loaded frame:
In order to balance the budget, some people say the state should hold the line on spending even if many programs are reduced. Others say to balance the budget the state should raise taxes if necessary and continue to support state programs. Which position comes closest to your view?
Now, this is a load of crap in terms of a question. What "some people are saying" is that taxes on the state's wealthiest should not be cut at the expense of these programs. What "some people are saying" is that there shouldn't be a corporate tax cut at the expense of these programs. What "some people are saying" is that there shouldn't be a $1 BILLION tax cut at the expense of cutting programs for seniors, for women's health, for cutting public transportation services, for cutting education funding or for raising fees for just about everything (but don't call it a tax, of course).
What I want to see is a poll that asks the following questions in terms of Christie's choices and the budget:
Are you ok with having less garbage collection/less snow removal/slower emergency response time at the expense of lower taxes on the state's highest earners?
Are you ok with having higher fees for public transportation and lower levels of essential services so that those earning over $400,000 can enjoy a tax break?
Do you think that those earning over $1,000,000 deserve a tax cut in this economic climate?
Are you in favor of eliminating services such as auto inspections if it means a greater likelihood of dangerous automobiles being on the roads?
Given the recent scandals with private debt collectors and the NJ tax department, are you in favor of an initiative to privatize other debt collection services?
Those are just a few of the many real and true questions that should be asked of NJ voters when it comes to what Governor Christie is choosing to do in this state. When the corporate media is stretched thin and the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low and the Governor has the biggest bully pulpit to act the part, most voters don't know what is actually going on.
And the voters are being done a disservice when they are being polled with loaded questions that don't explain just what is being done to them.
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com has put out a new set of pollster rankings (methodology here and reponse to complaints here) and I notice our New Jersey pollsters did off pretty well. His "Pollster Induced Error" (PIE) statistics is meant to capture "the amount of error that a pollster introduces above and beyond that which is unavoidable due to things like sampling variance. The lower a firm's PIE the better." Farleigh Dickinson (1.75), Rutgers (1.76), and Gannett/Monmouth (2.17) are all better than the default rating. Ratings are primarily based on how well polls within the last 21 days predict the outcome of the election over the last decade.
I should note, though, there is a statistical correction ("reversion to the mean") in which:
...the ratings for polling firms which were members of NCPP, or which had signed onto the AAPOR Transparency Initiative, as of June 1, 2010, are regressed toward a different mean than those which hadn't. Essentially, then, polling firms are rewarded for having made a public commitment to disclosure and transparency -- but the basis for rewarding them is statistical rather than ideological.
FDU and Rutgers both have met this criterion, but to my surprise
Gannett/Monmouth (according to 538) has not, and so I imagine it suffers slightly in this rating system. If this is an error by Silver, Patrick Murray might want to correct it. There certainly seems to me to quite good details in their releases.
Survey USA is out with a new poll that shows Governor Christie's approval rating upside down. Here's the report from ABC 7:The Governor stands at 33% approval, 63% disapproval, but he says he could care less. I don't see the poll posted on their website yet, but I'll put it up when they do. It didn't take very long for voters to get buyers remorse. Then he went on to say this:
"Almost everyone of those polls said I wasn't going to win too, well, here I am," said Governor Christie.
Actually as I remember it, Christie led nearly the whole way with the polls closing at the end. Funny, thats how Pollster.com remembers it too. Out of 86 polls taken between October 2008 and November 2009, only 19 of them ever showed Corzine leading Christie. He's said he's not good at math, but I don't think that 22% of the polls is almost ever one.
We're lucky to have poll releases today from Monmouth/Gannett (full PDF) and Rutgers Eagleton (full PDF) on New Jersey budget issues. Some of the Eagleton results were released earlier in the week. I'll mention the FDU poll which is about a month older, but still after the budget speech, and which is more favorable to Christie. In fairness, you should also keep in mind that Governor Corzine's budget proposals were not very popular either.
First, Governor Christies' approval rating is going down in all polls:
Monmouth: 22% satisfied, 32% "can live with it," 44% dissatisfied
Ealgeton: 13% "very pleased," 30% "pleased," "21% somewhat displeased," "29% very displeased"
FDU poll: 38% favorable, 39% unfavorable.
The Eagleton poll asked about what areas should be cut. If you suspect the public likes government spending and dislikes taxes you won't be surprised by their conclusions:
"Our recent poll showed that half of New Jerseyans are displeased with Governor Chris Christie's proposed budget," said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and professor of political science at Rutgers University. "These new results give a good sense of residents' priorities in this difficult time. Laying off teachers or significantly cutting school aid are not seen as solutions. On the other hand, given today's economic challenges, people do not want to see their own costs increase either. The state is between a rock and a hard place, with clear support for a limited number of solutions, one of which is cuts to municipal government."
The public also opposes cuts to aid for the poor in the Eagleton poll, and state colleges scored nearly as well as public (K-12) schools. Here's the quote from the Monmouth release:
"The local aid reduction, particularly to schools, was always going to be the flashpoint for criticism of the plan, and the governor's clash with the NJEA only increased the heat. If part of his strategy was to win over public opinion, it hasn't been an overwhelming success," said [Monmouth pollster] Murray.
One contradiction between the two polls is that Monmouth asked about "cuts in aid to local school districts and towns" which the public denounced as unfair. Eagleton asked about schools, towns, and other possibilities separately, so it found school cuts unpopular but municipal cuts supported. On the other hand, Monmouth also picked up that more voters say they will vote against school budgets than vote for them which you might consider a little inconsistent.
As Hopeful notes below, a new poll by FDU shows (1) a dead heat between Senator Menendez and Tom Kean, Jr. for a race that is over two years from now, and (2) a very mixed bag on what people in NJ think about health care reform.
As Hopeful notes, 42% of New Jerseyans think that they personally will be worse off if the current health care reform bill passes, while 37% feel that they personally will be better off if the current health care reform bill passes. However, that 5% spread is reversed when the question is asked about the country as a whole, with a 45% - 40% margin indicating that the current health care bill will be better for the country. Adding to this, there is a 5% margin (40% against, 35% for, 25% don't know) when it comes to whether respondents would urge THEIR member of Congress to vote for or against ANY health care bill.
"Our United States Senators should finally listen to the majority of New Jerseyans and support a fresh approach to reforming our health insurance industry."
What's more, Kean said that the suspicious timing of his pontificating was merely "happenstance".
Now, say what you want about the current health care bill - there certainly is more than enough things to like and dislike about the bill on an individual level, but the one thing that can NOT be said is what Kean is asserting about "a fresh approach". It is either (1) is this bill good for me, (2) is this bill good for the rest of the country or (3) do you want your Congressman to vote for ANY bill. If Kean wants to be taken seriously, then he should actually say things that are accurate - especially when it comes to issues that he claims to represent "the majority of New Jerseyans" on and issues where he hopes to represent all of New Jerseyans.
When reached for comment, Adam L a/k/a clammyc noted that the timing of this post was merely "happenstance".
