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".
I wanted to bring your attention to an interesting post by Nate Silver of 538.com on The Myth of the Incumbent 50% Rule. He's prompted by the claim that incumbents get only the same percentage of the vote as they do in early polling, and therefore incumbents under 50% almost always lose. Here's his conclusion:
1) It is extremely common for an incumbent come back to win re-election while having less than 50 percent of the vote in early polls.
2) In comparison to early polls, there is no demonstrable tendency for challengers to pick up a larger share of the undecided vote than incumbents.
3) Incumbents almost always get a larger share of the actual vote than they do in early polls (as do challengers). They do not "get what they get in the tracking"; they almost always get more...
It is probably OK to focus on an incumbent's vote share in early polls while downplaying the challenger's number, but if you do, you need to add 6-7 percent to it to have the most accurate prediction of his likely performance in November.
Silver's data, which you can see by clicking through, shows that incumbents who poll 45% in January-June usually win -- like Frank Lautenberg in 2008, at only 45.7%, who got to 56% on election day -- and overall 19 of 30 incumbents under 50% end up winning. (Incumbents over 50% are safe.) In short, undecideds do not usually break overwhelmingly to the challengers as conventional wisdom tell us. Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com says Nate is right, and explains that the "myth" is largely based on old races. I recall, but can't find the link, that kos recently found half of incumbents polling under 50% lose and half win. Many Democratic learned this lesson in the 2004 Presidential election, where Bush won despite many polls putting him under 50%. Here in New Jersey, Menendez won despite being below 40% (though he was appointed) and Corzine lost, but did get that 7 point surge.
I can't help but wonder if this speaks to the famous New Jersey election effect -- that Democrats poll too low. Perhaps instead of looking for a Jersey explanation, it's just that Democrats here poll the way incumbents do nationwide.
At a gut level, the public is divided. As a policy issue, most people don't really care one way or the other.
He goes through the evidence that both sides have mid-to-upper 40s but that it's just not a priority for many people. He makes a strong argument rejecting the claim that marriage must be decided by a referendum:
The public should absolutely have the final say on any situation that involves state borrowing. I also think a constitutional convention - where the public gives a straight up or down vote on the outcome - is worth serious consideration in New Jersey right now.
But the founders of our country - or at least James Madison in the Federalist Papers - were fairly clear that any issue affecting the rights of a minority should be determined within a deliberative setting. And general elections almost never meet the criterion of being deliberative - as anyone who followed this year's vacuous gubernatorial race will attest.
Also interesting is his view -- as a political scientist, statistician, and pollster -- of the panel that found that civil unions are not working:
I actually met with the Commission in August 2007 to discuss a potential study on civil unions. Ideally, the research would have interviewed a sample of civil union couples and a matching sample of married couples to see if the former were systematically experiencing any roadblocks that the latter were not. For various reasons (costs, logistics), the study was never conducted.
Though cost is certainly a concern anything that would reveal the truth about civil unions' failures more convincingly should be considered -- though, as Murray notes, opponents may not care what the truth is.
He finally goes on to ask why the state recognizes marriage at all? This related point that perhaps states should not be in marriage business at all has often been debated on liberal blogs (DBK raised it here today). Personally I don't care for that argument, but rather than discuss it here, I guess I'll have to write that "Why I Support Marriage Equality" post tomorrow after all.
Adam Geller, who polled for Chris Christie, has written a great analysis of the 2009 New Jersey polls for pollster.com. I really think you should read it if you had any interest in following the campaign here. Let me just highlight the parts I found most interesting.
Before the election, we discussed how the robotic (IRV) polls consistently showed a Christie lead while the human interview polls often showed a tied race or a Corzine lead. The election results obviously make the IRV polls look great. That's worth remembering on its own since we often hear that they're a new methodology that is not reliable. Well, that piece of folk wisdom is wrong. So what does Geller have to say about it? He acknowledges the issue but says it is a matter of other choices made the pollster rather than the humans. I wonder. I get the impression he is going to great lengths avoiding the conclusion that the IRV polls are better.
He argues that public polls should report their partisan spread and that they oversampled non-voters. He discusses the huge problem of the undeclared voters. He cautions that some pollsters (Carville, cough, cough, Shaftan, cough) may have an agenda. I think all of that is straightforward and we at least touched on these issues during the campaign.
What was new to me was his criticism of "random digit dialing" (RDD), where the pollster dials random digits, to make up random phone numbers, and then reach random potential voters. Here's what he says:
In general, RDD methodology is a bad choice in New Jersey, if the goal is predictive accuracy.
In New Jersey, there are many undeclared voters (commonly but mistakenly referred to as Independents). These undeclared voters identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats - even though they are not registered that way. In our polls, we frequently showed a Democrat registration advantage that matched their actual registration advantage - but when it came to partisan ID, the spread was more like a six point Democrat advantage. By using a voter list, we knew how a respondent was registered - and by seeing how they ID'ed themselves, we gained insight into the relative behavioral trends of undeclared voters and even registered Democrats who were self identifying as Independents. Public pollsters who dialed RDD missed this. Partisan identification in New Jersey is not enough, if the goal is to "get it right."
That makes a lot of sense to me. It must be more expensive and difficult to work from voter lists, but basing your turnout models on actual voters who really voted might work better. It also helps with this huge problem of people who think they are (say) Republicans but don't register that way. We also know that the turnout model was critical just from what the public pollsters told us: that Christie had a huge lead (bigger than the win, by the way) with "definite" voters but the less likely voters brought Corzine closer.
Of course, at the end of the day, we don't know that Geller's polls were any better, when we recall we've never seen his numbers and I read between the lines. He invokes "insight we gained" which is rather different than 'results we measured' and when you read the article critically you'll notice there is no actual claim he did better. Still, I'd like to see what the public pollsters say about working off of voter lists instead of random digits. There doesn't seem to be much doubt that polling in New Jersey is more difficult than in some other states.
Just when you thought you were done with the polls, FDU is out with a poll that shows the Governor holding a slim two point lead over Chris Christie:
Polling over the past 11 days by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind™ shows that Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine and Republican challenger Chris Christie continued down to the wire in a close contest in the race for New Jersey governor. Reporting 1119 interviews of likely voters from Oct. 22 through Nov. 1 shows Corzine maintaining 43% support including leaners, against 41%, including leaners, for Christie, with 8% for independent Chris Daggett, 2% preferring other candidates, and 5% undecided, with a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.
This part of the poll memo confused me as they separated white women from the rest of women:
Democrats often have a significant advantage among women, offsetting a Republican advantage among men, but this year white women split evenly between Corzine and Christie (42-42) while white men prefer Christie by a large margin (55-29).
Does that mean that women and men who weren't white didn't help them make their point? They say that a majority of voters think that no matter what the numbers say now, Jon Corzine will be the Governor once again:
Nonetheless, more than half of voters (56%) say they think Corzine will win the election, against 28% who think that Christie will win. One percent say Daggett will win, and 15% say they don't know who will pull this one out.
Polls only matter if the people who participate actually go and vote. That's all we have left now is the ground game.
Following months of campaigning and after 86 polls since August 2008, the final pollster.com average shows Corzine 42%, Christie 42%, Daggett 10.1%:
I don't know if the race can get much closer than that. If ever people thought their vote didn't matter, now is the time to show them just how much it does.
In polling conducted over the final weekend of this campaign, the Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll finds the race is still in a statistical no man's land, but that incumbent Jon Corzine now appears to have a razor thin 43% to 41% lead over challenger Chris Christie. Independent Chris Daggett holds at 8%. This marks a slight, albeit statistically insignificant, shift from the 43% to 42% nominal lead Christie held in polling conducted from Wednesday through Friday.
"This race is still as close as it can be. It's possible that President Obama's visit boosted the governor's chances. But it is also likely that some anti-Corzine voters are still unsure of casting their lot with Christie. If the undecided vote breaks largely for the Republican, this race could be a squeaker," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
There has been a significant push to get people voting early:
The poll also finds that about 6% of New Jersey voters have already cast their ballot by mail, similar to the percentage of mail ballots received in last year's presidential race. For these ballots, Jon Corzine looks to have the decided advantage. A majority of 53% of mail voters say they voted for the incumbent, compared to just 31% for Christie, 11% for Daggett and 5% for other candidates.
Here's what the poll said about people's feelings for the candidates:
The poll found that Jon Corzine's job performance rating stands at 36% approve to 54% disapprove, which is basically unchanged from prior polls. However, his personal rating has improved, now registering at 40% favorable to 44% unfavorable. While still in net negative territory, this is better than the 39% to 49% personal rating the governor had last week.
Chris Christie's personal rating is a net positive 40% favorable to 38% unfavorable. This is down slightly from last week's 44% to 36% rating. It is also down significantly from the 50% favorable to 26% unfavorable rating he held back in July.
Chris Daggett's personal rating remains steady at 21% favorable to 21% unfavorable, with the majority (58%) of likely voters saying they never really formed an opinion of the independent candidate.
The polls are all over the place. It's all going to come down to who we get out to vote. Voters can find their polling place here. The site allows you to get an email/phone reminder when you want to vote and then gives you 5 neighbors who vote at the same polling place that you can call and remind to vote. You can even make calls from home on behalf of the Governor if you can't make it to a location to volunteer. If you want to volunteer but aren't sure where to help, you can call 877-NJ-GOV-09 and they will route you to the nearest office to get involved.
A couple of weeks back, I asked if Christie was choking down the homestretch as the double digit leads were evaporating as summer turned to fall and attention started being paid to this race. And while there was plenty of blame to go around - the numerous "drip drip drip" Christie scandals, the continued lack of a plan for anything, the belligerent tone in ads or on television appearances, the hammering he was getting from Daggett, Corzine, Democrats, conservatives and people who were starting to take notice, not to mention his blaming others for running what has been called "the worst campaign ever" - things never really got on track.
But now, it seems like Christie has gone into full "freak out" mode as some polls are starting to show Corzine opening up a lead or being within the margin of error.
He has re-opened the "wrong way Christie" story by saying that he wasn't going the wrong way down a one way street - essentially calling the officer a liar. After talking about how this race was not about "outsiders", he has had republican "superstars" (read: has beens and never will bes) Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani ad Tim Pawlenty campaign for him. There will be a teabagger rally (with him possibly there) since he will be less than a mile away with Joe "You Lie" Wilson.
He hasn't talked much at all about the "tax issue" that has fallen into his campaign's lap but chooses to spend the final week talking about how fat he is (his words, not mine).
And yesterday, he told a caller on 101.5 that he wasn't dead set against project labor agreements when he was asked directly, even though his website and prior comments have gone so far as to call them an "inexcusable amount of waste".
At the end of a campaign, a confident candidate or a candidate running a solid campaign would be hammering home the theme and message in a powerful closing argument. The problem with Christie all along is that he had no real message, he had no self control, ownership in his campaign or discipline and he had no real campaign theme.
Those are the last traits that you want to have or have portrayed in the days before a huge election. And for someone who has been accused of running a putrid campaign - it is amazing that he is ending it on an even worse note than he has been running it for the past few months.
Pollster Patrick Murray of Monmouth University has written about this before, and I've quoted it before, but it's still worthwhile to remind ourselves, as Murray does today, that registered "unaffliated" voters are not the same as "independent" voters. About 45% of New Jersey registered voters are not registered with a major party but that doesn't mean 45% of voters are independents.
There are two key facts that mean that the percentage of registered "unaffiliated" voters are larger than the actual vote by "independents."
1. Many people who are registered "unaffiliated" consider themselves Democrats or Republicans:
Being "unaffiliated" in one's registration is not the same as being "independent" in one's thinking. We consistently find that at least 1-in-5 unaffiliated New Jersey voters actually see themselves as partisan.
This is a byproduct of New Jersey's semi-open primary system. Why bother registering with a party if you can wait until primary day and do it on the spot? And why bother to vote in primaries if they are rarely competitive? So, New Jersey ends up with a lot of "party-line" voters who never bother to register with their preferred party. They just see no need.
2. Registered unaffiliated voters are less likely to actually vote:
Last year, unaffiliated voters made up 38% of the electorate even though they comprised 47% of registered voters. In other words, while more than 8-in-10 registered Republican and Democratic voters showed up last November, only 6-in-10 unaffiliated voters turned out.
This disparity is even larger in non-presidential years (i.e. like this year). In the 2006 election for U.S. Senate, about 7-in-10 registered partisans showed up, but only 1-in-3 unaffiliateds did. And that was when unaffiliated voters made up 58% of the voter rolls. My guess is that many of those folks probably voted in the 2008 presidential primary and are now registered with a party. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if the unaffiliated turnout is even lower this year.
We'll see if he's right in a few weeks, but the former chairman of the DNC has made his prediction:
The ever-confident former Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe predicted on Sunday that Democrats will win the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, where he lost the primary to Creigh Deeds.
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," McAuliffe even put a number on New Jersey: Gov. Jon Corzine by 7 points.
I don't think it's all that surprising that he's picking the Democrats. Pollster.com has it about as close as you can get when you average everything out there. They have Christie leading Corzine 39.9 to 39.8:
Pollster Tom Jensen of PPP has an interesting post asking "Will Daggett hold his support?" He decided to check how similar candidates did in other states:
Polls released this week, three weeks before the election, have shown Daggett at an average of 14%. I decided to look at all the independent or third party candidates who have received at least 5% of the vote in a Gubernatorial contest since 2006 and see where they were polling roughly three weeks prior to election day and how that compared to their final share of the vote.
You can look at his compilation of poll data and election results, but the conclusion is:
With the exception of Kinky Friedman none of the candidates did more than a point worse than they were doing in the polls three weeks before the election. On average they even did a little more than a point better.
In another post he argues that if Daggett's voters abandon him, it's only worth a point or so. That, however, is about the size of Christie's lead today.
A New York Times poll released this morning has Democratic Governor Jon Corzine leading Republican Chris Christie by a 40-37% margin among likely voters. While Corzine's lead is within the margin of error, the results represent good news for the incumbent, who is seeking re-election in the most difficult political environment faced by a Democrat since 1993. One should exercise caution before popping the bubbly, however, for the Times notes:
... the decision facing New Jersey voters is startlingly bleak, the poll found. They do not like Mr. Corzine, think he has done a poor job and have little faith that he will revive the state's ailing economy or gain control of soaring property taxes, the two issues they say they care about the most.
Poll respondents did not like Chris Christie either. Predictably, the Corzine campaign's negative advertisements have driven up the former U.S. Attorney's unfavorable numbers, a negative compounded by press attention on his lack of a specific plan to solve New Jersey's economic woes. Disappointing to those familiar with the Governor's work to clean up the state's fiscal mess is that most people are unaware of the Corzine Administration's accomplishments in this area. 56% of respondents disapprove of the way the Governor has handled the economy, and perhaps more disturbing, a full 72% disapprove of the way he has dealt with property taxes. As the Times elaborated:
Economic issues have New Jerseyans near despair, the survey showed. About three-quarters of those polled rated the state's economy as fairly bad or very bad, the worst rating since the question was first asked in 1993. As many say it is hard to keep up with their bills. Four of five think the economy is staying the same or getting worse. Seven in 10 worry that a member of their household will be out of work in the next year.
The poll may be good news for Governor Corzine, whose campaign has been relentless in its attacks on Christie. However, with less than three weeks until Election Day, voters remain unaware of the Governor's accomplishments. Today's poll illustrates the benefits of going negative, but as New Jerseyans indicate they are choosing between the lesser of two evils, it's time the Governor's campaign focused more on the achievements of the last four years and his vision for the next.
The poll states, "As he faced a withering assault from Corzine and independent groups over the issue of insurance coverage of mammograms, Christie has lost significant ground with women, especially independent women. He now posts a net favorability rating of - 19 with women, down from - 7 two weeks ago. Among independent women, the drop is even more pronounced: from - 7 two weeks ago to - 34 today, with half the independent women giving him an unfavorable rating. This has clearly benefited Corzine in the vote as the governor now leads among women by 14 points, up from 6 points two weeks ago.''
And that's why Christie changed his website to remove the word mandate-free and why they're trying to push back so forecfully. Because their position is very unpopular and causing women to flee. Here is the trend of all the recent polls from Pollster.com, which now shows the race as an average less than 1 point lead for Christie if you put it on the high sensitivity:
Pollster.com keeps track averaging all the polls including the Quinnipiac, Monmouth University and Dkos/Research 2000 polls that came out this week and continued to show a tightening in the race. Here is a visual look at the trends:I'll put all the polls that create the visual below the fold. Pollster.com is a pretty good site if you're into tracking public opinion. The final poll of the voters will be taken at the ballot box one month from today. That's really the only one that counts.
We're going to be polling New Jersey end of next week, suggestions for questions are welcome. With the election so close anything we're going to ask needs to be focused specifically on the Governor's race or politics in the state (no Anti-Christ questions!)
You cam head over to their blog and leave your suggestions.
The conventional wisdom is that Chris Christie never should have (in theory) been leading by as much as he was early on. And maybe he would be leading by most of the percentage that Chris Daggett is getting if it was a 2 way race (even if polls don't totally show that). And maybe this is because of the "tried and true" meme that most in NJ don't pay attention until late and that the state almost always breaks for the Democratic candidate for various reasons.
But this time, there is a difference.
Jon Corzine's approval numbers are way lower than they should be for someone who is still very much in this race - and the one with momentum at this point. As hopeful pointed out, Corzine hasn't really moved that much in the polls either, and hasn't been above 42% at all. And granted, this is a 3 way race with a very dissatisfied electorate.
The huge lead wasn't going to hold up over time anyway, but Christie has done a horrible job of managing expectations as the inevitable tightening of the race has occurred. I don't know if this matters much, but there is a perception that can be exploited.
Christie hasn't done anything other to define himself other than "not Corzine", and is really trying to run out the clock. He has been slammed from all sides on this - Paul Mulshine hasn't let up from the right, nor have the "Lonegan conservatives". And while those of us on the left certainly haven't either, he has let Corzine define him through a series of negative ads.
Christie hasn't really done much to counter this defining by Corzine - when you bill yourself as the "white knight who is tough on crime" and all of the cracks in your armor start appearing over and over and over, that aura is not only punctured, but it calls other things into question.
Christie hasn't helped himself with his actions and temperament. When the "shared values" section of his website with his right wing "credentials" disappeared and then reappeared, he blew it off. When he was challenged on the deferred prosecution agreements, he blew it off and got defensive and angry. When he was called on his abuse of office and power, he blew it off. When he was called on his promises that were out of sync with reality, he blew it off. When he was called on his views of health care and mandates, he got defensive and angry.
Those are a few off the top of my head, and I am sure there are more (and better ones). But when Christie (1) doesn't really define himself other than trying to be both very conservative and very moderate at the same time, (2) doesn't have a plan for just about anything that is realistic (you can't cut taxes and cut enough spending and refuse stimulus funds and balance the budget), (3) is out of step with what many NJ families want (either conservative or progressive) and (4) get angry or defensive when challenged on anything - well that is a recipe for disaster, even in a "red state".
Here in NJ, he may well end up losing by 5 points if he keeps this up. Tonight's debate is way more critical for him than it is for either Corzine or Daggett. He has to reverse the downward spiral of his campaign if he wants to win. My guess is that Daggett will more than hold his own, Corzine will do fine and both will be hitting Christie hard tonight.
For his own sake, Christie better be prepared and better not lose his cool.
As contributors to the chattering class, we pollsters also have a responsibility to keep what's truly important in our sights. That means not just measuring voter opinion of the nonsense being fed to them by scripted campaigns, but actually giving voice to what the voters themselves want to know about how this state will be governed over the next four years. Like tracking the fact that property taxes is consistently the top issue voters want to hear the candidates talk about.
I understand that a pollster can generate headlines - and perhaps clients - by asking what would happen if Corzine were replaced on the ballot by another candidate - as one out-of-state Democratic pollster did recently. [Although, it is intriguing that this partisan pollster did not include Dick Codey as one of the options - the only name that probably would have bested Christie in the poll]. However, these poll results do nothing to inform the debate for those of us who actually live in the state and are concerned about how we are going to pay our bills, such as - to use an entirely random example - property taxes.
Perhaps the most bizarre example of measuring New Jersey public opinion was a recent question asking if President Obama is the anti-Christ. If this polling firm really wanted to be relevant to the current state of affairs in New Jersey, it should have asked whether the state's voters believe any of the gubernatorial nominees is the anti-Christ. That's certainly how each candidate hopes his opponent will be perceived by November 3rd.
You'll notice that Murray uses the media establishment technique of never naming the person (Tom Jensen) he's criticizing -- implicitly placing their action beyond the pale. You'd never guess from this column that Monmouth/Gannett's release that week was Jersey to Bruce: Keep Rocking! (PDF). This week's release is more consistent with Murray's stated principles, New Jerseyans on Their Property Taxes (PDF).
But the more interesting question is how do pollsters choose their topics? Both the PPP and Monmouth/Gannett polls have actually answered the question. Tom Jensen has written about the origin of the Anti-Christ Question following the Joe Wilson affair:
One of the suggestions was that we poll on this question of whether Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ. We couldn't get it on the Wilson poll due to length considerations, but I got several follow up e-mails and messages on Twitter from people saying they really did think we should ask it, so we did...
Anyway, our company really is trying to find an intersection between high quality, accurate scientific polling and genuine utilization of social media. So the moral of the story is send us your crazy question idea and we really might ask it.
You can see the actual suggestion from a reader here:
One other suggestion, although it's a little frivoulous:
Do you believe Barack Obama is the Antichrist?
(I've always wanted to push slightly beyond the 'birther' stuff to see if this is what's really driving a portion of the population.)
Now, let's see what the Monmouth/PPP release states on the origin of their topics. For the Bruce Springsteen poll, it's near the end of the release:
Monmouth University will be hosting Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium at its campus in West Long Branch, New Jersey on September 25th to 27th. The event will bring together educators, journalists, historians, musicologists, and fans interested in Bruce Springsteen and his influence on American culture. It will also include musical performances and tours of important Springsteen sites. Tickets for the symposium and the performances are available to the public. For more information, please visit: www.cpe.vt.edu/glorydays.
Yes, in the same week Patrick Murray criticized Tom Jensen for a "bizarre" poll that it is not "responsible" and was aimed to "make headlines," he put out a poll that is literally an advertisement. (Indeed, I could argue the question was chosen to favor Bruce, because Sinatra would have done well if it was not restricted to "rock performer," and the Beatles were split into three different responses.) As for his much vaunted tax poll, it appears from that release that Gannett chose the topic to, at least in part, advertise their newspaper:
As part of the Gannett New Jersey newspaper series "Fighting New Jersey's Tax Crush" (www.app.com/TaxCrush), the Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll took a wide-ranging look at public views of the tax that 6-in-10 Garden State residents tab as the least fair tax they pay.
Well, if Monmouth and Gannett pay the bills, it's appropriate they choose the topics, but Murray should spare us the sanctimonious lectures.
These are the percentage of New Jersey voters -- in the 39 different polls taken this year by 11 different polling companies -- who say they will vote for Governor Jon Corzine when matched up against Chris Christie, or Chris Christie plus Chris Daggett.
There is not a single poll all year where Jon Corzine does more than 4 points better than the median (and average, and mode) of 38, and only three (less than 10%) where he does more than 4 points worse. In contrast, Christie's numbers have a huge variation. While it's pretty plain Christie went up in the polls and then slid back a bit, I honestly think Corzine's numbers have not budged all year -- we just see random variations due to sampling and differences in polling techniques.
I think it follows that nothing in these nine-and-half months of campaigning has convinced anyone to get out and cast a positive vote for Jon Corzine. That's why I think more negative advertising is not enough, somehow a powerful positive message has to get through the clutter. Easier said than done, and I appreciate the campaign's efforts so far, but I think the polls say the Democratic and unaffiliated voters that have cast votes for Corzine, Obama, and so many other Democrats in the past need to be inspired.
You already know about the infamous Anti-Christ question (more here, but Public Policy Polling asked quite a few more interesting questions in their New Jersey Poll. Here's a roundup:
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.
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.
There's been talk about a new PPP Poll and the (I think) 9 point Christie lead, but what hasn't been discussed is the strange question thrown into the poll:
only 79 percent of voters ready to rule out the possibility that their president is the Anti-Christ. Eight percent say he is, while 13 percent are not sure.
[snip]
Twelve percent of McCain voters think Obama is the Anti-Christ. Twenty-one percent are not sure.
Fourteen percent of Republicans think Obama is the Anti-Christ. Fifteen percent are not sure.
Eighteen percent of "conservative" voters think Obama is the Anti-Christ. Seventeen percent are not sure.
Now, if I were asked that question a few years ago about Bush, I probably would have answered "yes" or "hell yes" just as a goof. But with the level of vitriol and the Bible Thumpers (who don't actually follow what is written in the Bible) and teabaggers and wingnuts and outright racists coming out from all corners of Right Wingnutistan, you never know just how many of them answered this question seriously.
That being said, I was able to uncover (due to super duper sleuthing) some other views of NJ republicans that will make your head spin (and not because it is Obama the anti-Christ making your head spin):
57% of NJ republicans believe that the "Democratic Party" secretly took the letter "N" out of the name and was really the "Demoncratic Party"
42% believe that "ACORN" stands for "American Criminals (for) Obama Rule Now";
67% don't actually know what the word "socialism" means (ok, so this one may be real);
36% think that "Marxism" is based on using comedic eyeglasses and moustaches to lull the electorate into subservience;
29% think Corzine got his wealth by personally stealing billions from NJ taxpayers and pocketing it all; and
19% support Christie Whitman in her run for Governor this year;
Oh yeah, one more for you. 72.96% of all statistics are made up.....
