Corzine Nipping at Christie's Heels in New Jersey

2 years ago

0 Comments Say Something »

Text Size

Contributing Editor

A day after a Quinnipiac poll showed New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine closing the gap on Republican challenger Chris Christie, a new survey by Monmouth University/Gannett conducted Sept. 24-29 has Christie ahead of Corzine by just 43 percent to 40 percent among likely voters, with independent Chris Daggett at 8 percent. The Corzine-Christie figure is within the poll's 3.5 percent margin of error.

The conventional wisdom about New Jersey is that while the Democrat may look to be in bad shape in the early going, the party's base comes home as election day nears. Monmouth says that's what's happening here, along with independent women shifting allegiance to Corzine.

Quinnipiac had the race at 43 percent for Christie, 39 percent for Corzine and 12 percent for Daggett.

While Christie commands a higher percentage of the vote among fellow Republicans (86 percent) than Corzine does among Democrats (75 percent), Monmouth says that "Democrats have become more interested in the outcome of this campaign and thus are more likely to vote than they were just a month ago."

Christie has an overall advantage among independents of 49 percent to 28 percent. But independent women, who account for about 15 percent of voters here in non-presidential races, now split between Corzine and Christie, with Corzine getting 38 percent and Christie 37 percent. In Monmouth's last poll, they backed Christie by 38 percent to 31 percent.

Forty-one percent of voters view Christie favorably, compared to 39 percent who do not, down from the 48-30 ratio recorded in the last poll. Corzine is viewed unfavorably by 49 percent and favorably by 40 percent. Likely voters disapprove of the job Corzine is doing as governor by 55 percent to 41 percent.

Forty-eight percent of likely voters say the top issue for them is property taxes, with 22 percent citing jobs and 16 percent saying health care and prescription drug costs, and another 16 percent pointing to education.

Forty-six percent say Christie would do a better job on the property-tax issue, compared to 31 percent for Corzine. But they say by 79 percent to 20 percent that they have not heard any specific plans from either candidate about how they would reduce property taxes.

Filed Under: Polls, Governors, Poll Watch

Tagged: chris christie, ChrisChristie, daily guidance, DailyGuidance, jon corzine, JonCorzine, new jersey governors race, NewJerseyGovernorsRace

Our New Approach to Comments

In an effort to encourage the same level of civil dialogue among Politics Daily’s readers that we expect of our writers – a “civilogue,” to use the term coined by PD’s Jeffrey Weiss – we are requiring commenters to use their AOL or AIM screen names to submit a comment, and we are reading all comments before publishing them. Personal attacks (on writers, other readers, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, or anyone at all) and comments that are not productive additions to the conversation will not be published, period, to make room for a discussion among those with ideas to kick around. Please read our Help and Feedback section for more info.