Favorable View of Obama May be Corzine's Best Hope in N.J.

A poll by the New York Times puts Gov. Jon Corzine ahead of Republican Chris Christie among likely voters by 40 percent to 37 percent, but finds widespread dissatisfaction with the two men and the way things are going in their state. The one positive, which may be key for Corzine, is that voters still give high marks to President Obama.

Independent Chris Daggett, who is given no chance of winning but is seen by some as a wild card in the outcome, polled 14 percent of the vote. The poll was conducted Oct. 9-14 and has a 3 point margin of error. Corzine has a bigger margin when it comes to all registered voters, but the Times notes in the last two elections for governor only 49 percent of registered voters showed up at the polls.

Sixty-nine percent of voters say their minds are made up and 30 percent said they might still change.

The polls have shown Corzine steadily closing the gap on Christie during recent weeks, no doubt helped by the blizzard of ads on television that his well-financed campaign has launched. Two polls this week had him pulling to within a point, but this is the first one that has Corzine ahead, although within the margin of error.

Corzine and Christie supporters are not delighted with their choices. Forty-one percent of Corzine voters say they strongly favor their man, while 38 percent have reservations and 22 percent mostly dislike the other candidates. For Christie, 33 percent strongly favor him, 36 percent have reservations and 31 percent just dislike the others.

Forty-six percent see Corzine unfavorably compared to 30 percent who see him favorably, 18 percent who are undecided and 4 percent who say they haven't heard enough to express an opinion. Christie is viewed unfavorably by 37 percent, favorably by 19 percent with 24 percent undecided and 17 percent saying they hadn't heard enough about him. Sixty percent have not heard enough about Daggett to form an opinion of him, making his favorable-to-unfavorably ratio pretty meaningless.

Voters disapprove of Corzine's performance as governor by 49 percent to 33 percent, and by 62 percent to 28 percent they feel things in New Jersey "have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track." Forty-nine percent say the condition of New Jersey's economy is fairly bad and 29 percent describe it as very bad. Twenty-one percent say it is fairly good and only 2 percent say it is very good. Asked what direction they thought the economy was headed, 49 percent say it was staying about the same, 35 percent say it would get worse and 13 percent predict it will get better.

But when it comes to Obama they approve of the way he is doing his job by 62 percent to 25 percent, a far higher margin than Obama's national standing.

And that raises the question of whether Corzine can energize those who came out to vote for Obama last year and still think highly of the president now. Obama carried the state in 2008 by 57 percent to 42 percent, but a Public Policy Polling survey conducted Oct. 9-12 found, at this point, that voters who are likely to go to the polls next month supported Obama by 49 percent to 45 percent last year -- meaning that there are a lot of Obama supporters still sitting on their hands.

Voters say the two most important issues for them are property taxes (21 percent cite this) and taxes in general (19 percent). All other issues are in single digits.

They disapprove of Corzine's handling of property taxes by 72 percent to 17 percent.