State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/13/09)

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Public Policy Polling released a new poll from New Jersey this morning and the state of the race has moved very little. In fact, because the new poll looked so similar to the last most recent poll (from Democracy Corp), nothing changed much at all with the exception of both major party candidates dropping a tenth of a percentage point. Christie's shift is a continuance of his slide in surveys of late whereas Corzine's move was more a function of his most recent poll rating (41% in the Democracy Corp poll) being slightly higher than the 39% support the incumbent Democrat received in the PPP poll.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Public Policy Polling [pdf]	Oct. 9-12, 2009	+/- 4.1%	571 likely voters	39	40	13	8

The real news continues to be Chris Daggett's rise in the last few weeks. His 13% showing in the PPP poll pushed the independent closer to the 10% mark in FHQ's averages of the race's competitors. But it isn't all good news for Daggett (and Corzine by association). As was brought up again today by Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic, Daggett faces the very real possibility that voters will have issues locating him on the ballot. The major party candidates get the first two rows in the gubernatorial ballot with the first slot being determined by a coin flip between the Democrats and Republicans. Everyone else, though, is crammed into a third row (see FHQ's discussion of this from last week). What will happen then? PPP found that only 44% of Daggett's supporters in this poll were committed to the independent and that Christie led by a 48-34 margin over Corzine as a second choice. If you aren't really committed to the third party guy, and you can't find him on the ballot, then what is the likelihood that you throw in the towel and mark the name of your second choice -- the guy who's not the unpopular incumbent.

Now, is that likely to happen? Possibly in a lower information, off-year election like this where the race is close. Usually the impact of something like this would be felt at the margins and wouldn't affect the outcome. But we're talking about a statistical tie in this race in the most recent polls. Yes, FHQ's averages are still a bit skeptical (owing to the fact that we have turned the other way on several Neighborhood Research polls and a handful of internet-based polls that have shown a close race as well) and lag behind. However, the margin between Christie and Corzine is definitely creeping closer.

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/8/09)

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I don't know that there is much to say here. The race for governor in New Jersey is very simply getting tighter. Jon Corzine found himself again on top of the race in a poll for the second time this week, doubling his total of polls led from (way) earlier in the year. Now, that isn't to say that Chris Christie has lost the advantage -- he hasn't here at FHQ or elsewhere -- but the momentum is squarely against the Republican at the moment. And the sudden jump of independent Chris Daggett in the polls (especially this week into the mid-teens) seems to be drawing directly from the former US attorney. All three candidates are breaking new ground. Daggett is threatening to break the 10% mark, Corzine is inching toward 40% and Christie is now about to fall under 45% for the first time since FHQ began tabulating the averages of this race in mid-June.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Democracy Corps [pdf]	Oct. 6-7, 2009	+/- 4%	614 likely voters	41	38	14	7
Survey USA	Oct. 5-7, 2009	+/- 4%	639 likely voters	40	43	14	2

What brought us to this point today? Well, two new polls -- from Survey USA and Democracy Corps -- each showed one of the candidates up by three points. In other words, today's polls were statistical ties. Averaging across the two (without weighting), Christie and Corzine were knotted at 40.5% with Daggett laying claim to the support of 14% of the survey respondents.

With a tie basically prevailing here, every big event (and even some seemingly small ones unforeseen on the horizon) is magnified. As much as the debates may seem like non-starters nationally, they may matter from the perspective that they offer a chance for either major party campaign to shift the narrative coming out of the event and moving forward.

Again, Christie is ahead, but with just under four weeks left to go this one continues to get more and more interesting.

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State of the Race: New Jersey (10/6/09)

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It is always one thing to say you're gaining on your competition, but to actually get in a position to surpass him or her is another thing entirely. And while Jon Corzine hasn't exactly been gaining on Chris Christie in the polls so much as Christie has been sliding, the incumbent is now within striking distance. Of all the poll releases since (the completely arbitrary date of) September 21, all six have shown a race within four points. [And depending on the sample sizes, all are within the margin of error.] And in the Fairleigh Dickinson poll out today, Jon Corzine has his first poll lead since January. One could say it has been a roller coaster ride. It has; just not for Corzine, who in the two polls released today reached the high water mark or his polling support this entire year. Despite that, Corzine has been stuck for the better part of the year in the 37-38% range in most polls while Chris Christie has been the one to see a dramatic rise into the 50% range and a subsequent fall since.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Rasmussen	Oct. 5, 2009	+/- 4%	750 likely voters	44	47	6	3
Fairleigh Dickinson [pdf]	Sept. 28-Oct. 5, 2009	+/- 4%	667 likely voters	44	43	4	5

Before we look at the broader picture, we need to make a side note about the Fairleigh Dickinson poll and Chris Daggett*. The independent candidate received 4% in the poll, but in a split sample question that named either Daggett or another independent candidate, Gary Steele, directly (as opposed to having either candidate volunteered by the respondent in the full sample question), Daggett garnered 17% of the vote. Steele pulled in 12%. In other words, there appears to be some apprehension among likely voters concerning the two major party candidates. The reason that FHQ used the volunteered Daggett results over the split sample results was that the split sample size was so small for a New Jersey-wide poll. In the interest of transparency, though, the results for that question (Corzine 38, Christie 37, Daggett 17) yielded averages of Corzine 38.7%, Christie 45.8% and Daggett 7.9%. The gap, then, between the Corzine and Christie would be the same, albeit with both candidates a sliver under where they are in the graphic above.

So where does that leave this race? Things certainly are tightening, but FHQ's graduated weighted average continues to show a pretty good lead for Christie. It is still above seven points, but only barely so. The remarkable thing is that now it is Christie who is basically in the same position he was in back in June following his primary victory. Meanwhile, Corzine, who was stuck on the line between 37 and 38 all summer is the candidate who is gaining (both recently and relative to his comparable numbers in June). Christie may be ahead, then, but that margin continues to shrink, or will if subsequent polls continue to show these dead heats.

...and there is no indication yet that we won't continue to see that. That makes for an interesting last month to this particular race.

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*Also note that Daggett has now been added to both the header graphic and the trendline graphic immediately above.


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Here's what things would have looked like in New Jersey had the Rasmussen poll been released tomorrow.

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An update with the Fairleigh Dickinson and Rasmussen poll results is on its way.


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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/2/09)

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Word of this poll came out prior to the first debate of the New Jersey governors race, but still, following that debate where independent candidate, Chris Daggett stole the show, this can't be good news for the Christie campaign. The Republican is increasingly coming back to the pack and a visible alternative can only serve to potentially split the anti-incumbent/anti-Corzine vote. Is Corzine in the clear, though? No, but the governor did manage to break the 40% barrier which has to be seen as partially positive. After all, if Daggett ends up with around 10% of the vote on November 3, then the race is to 45. 42% is better, but Christie is still closer at 46%

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Daily Kos/Research 2000	Sept. 28-30, 2009	+/- 4%	600 likely voters	42	46	7	5

But Corzine isn't really at 42%. He is in this poll, but he has certainly been underperforming that mark in all but a few polls throughout all of 2009 and hasn't really been to that height recently. FHQ still has the incumbent Democrat in the same 38% range, but he is inching upward while Christie is sliding. If the race continues on this current trajectory, it is going to, as seems to be the case given recent polling in the Virginia race, be about turnout. And given the Democratic bent of the Garden state that's good news at Drumthwacket.

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/1/09)

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/1/09)

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The other shoe dropped today on the day of the first gubernatorial debate in New Jersey. Yesterday it was Quinnipiac that showed a closer race after having shown Chris Christie comfortably ahead for much of the year. Today it is Monmouth/Gannett, that's following suit. Of course, Daily Kos/Research 2000 are going to show an equally tight race in the morning.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Monmouth/Gannett [pdf]	Sept. 24-29, 2009	+/- 4.3%	527 likely voters	40	43	8	8

Again, though, this is evidence not of a Corzine comeback (He has inched into the 39-40% range this week.), but of Republican Chris Christie's decline from a summer peak in the lower 50s. Independent candidate Chris Daggett initially seemed to be taking away support from Corzine, but as Christie drops and Daggett remains around the same level in the polls, on its face at least, it appears as if he may be drawing more support from the Republican.

We'll have to see what the internals on the Kos poll look like in the morning.

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/30/09)

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New Jersey's race for governor seems to be tightening some. FHQ has long been moderately skeptical of Chris Christie's return from a midsummer's polling peak. But now that one of the main hold outs -- one of the polls that has consistently shown the Republican up by near double digits (or more) leads -- has indicated that the race is closer, strange things may indeed be afoot at the Circle K. Given that Governor Corzine is still mired in the high 30s, this seems to be pointing toward independent candidate Chris Daggett having a significant impact on the outcome of this race.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Quinnipiac	Sept. 23-28, 2009	+/- 2.8%	1188 likely voters	39	43	12	6

But let's not read too much into one poll. The truth of the matter is that this poll has very little effect on the FHQ averages for the race. In fact, the numbers have basically flatlined for the two major party candidates since the previous poll -- last week's Democracy Corp poll. Where does that leave us with less than five weeks left in the race? Well, Christie is slowly dropping but Corzine isn't going much of anywhere. The governor continues to occupy a spot in the 37-39% range and doesn't appear to be going anywhere fast. The question for him now is, "Can Daggett pull enough away from Christie to keep the incumbent in office?" With a little over a month left, we're about to find out.

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We're close to entering the final month of Campaign '09 and the polling in New Jersey and Virginia is starting to pick up as a result. There were a couple of new polls out in New Jersey and depending on your perspective both are problematic. FHQ won't pile on Strategic Vision any more than has already been the case (see here and here*) except to accuse Strategic Vision of stealing our numbers -- jokingly of course.

...I think.

The first thing we thought here at FHQ upon seeing those numbers was, "Hey, those are the same as our averages in the race right now. What a coincidence."

Later it became, "Was that a coincidence?" Of course it is, but my real point here is that the inclusion of that data has absolutely no impact on the averages. They basically just serve to reinforce the preexisting state of the race. We'll leave the Strategic Vision poll in the averages until something is definitively proven one way or the other. Innocent until proven guilty, right?

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Strategic Vision	Sept. 18-21, 2009	+/- 3%	800 likely voters	38	46	8	8
Democracy Corp [pdf]	Sept. 22-23, 2009	+/- 4%	601 likely voters	39	40	11	9

The other poll from the Garden state came from Democracy Corp. Now, there isn't anything wrong with the GQR poll other than the fact that the firm leans Democratic. The firm has consistently shown a closer race than most other polling outfits, and that doesn't change here. What this and Democracy Corp's other polls seem to imply, given that Corzine continually hover at or below the 40% mark across these and most other polls, is that the support for independent candidate Chris Daggett is coming at the expense of Chris Christie and not Jon Corzine (as has seemed the case in other polling). Still, the poll certainly seems to accurately show the position Corzine is in, but is underestimating Christie's support relative to other recent polls.

How does that affect the Republican candidate's fortunes in FHQ's assessment of the race? Well, it certainly hasn't trailed off like what Pollster is showing (Christie = 43.7%)**, but it has dropped. Throughout our averaging of the polls in this race, Christie has yet to drop below the 46% mark, but is on the cusp of doing so now. [In fact, the Republican technically has dropped below that point because the average rounded up from 45.99.] However, Corzine has been unable to counteract that decrease from his opponent with an increase of his own. And that continues to be the story in this race. Now, Christie's decline may ultimately wind up meaning that undecideds and some Daggett supporters break toward Corzine at the last minute, but we're a long way off from seeing that. For now, Corzine is still trying to figure out how to break 40%.

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*I had the same question as in one of FiveThirtyEight's early comments to that post. It is fine to compare Strategic Vision to the average across all polling firms but how to other firms stack up under similar isolated scrutiny.
**The Christie decline at Pollster is largely attributable to both the Democracy Corp polls and their inclusion of the Neighborhood Research polls as well. And FHQ is excluding the polls from the latter.


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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/22/09)

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Six weeks to go until election day and in New Jersey nothing is new. Chris Christie continues to lead incumbent governor, Jon Corzine. The only thing remotely new out of the just released Rasmussen poll of the Garden state gubernatorial race is that the undecided mark has dropped off since the last survey the firm conducted in the state earlier in the month. The good news for Chris Christie is that Corzine does not seem to be taking any disproportionate number of these late deciders (at least not enough to make a noticeable difference).

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Rasmussen	Sept. 21, 2009	+/- 4.5%	500 likely voters	41	48	6	5

And where does that leave this race? With only a little over a week before October dawns, this race is startlingly stationary from the Corzine campaign's perspective. It has to be. If you compare the first FHQ graduated weighted average of this race from all the way back on June 11 to this one you will find that Christie has hardly budged, edging up only three-tenths of a percentage point. Corzine meanwhile has only been able to cut into an initial (approximately) ten point lead by a little under a point. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that that's probably not how they envisioned the summer going.

A while back I joked that Creigh Deeds needed to find his Bush/US attorney rating story and run with it. The Virginia Democrat has certainly found something in Bob McDonnell's thesis to help close the gap. But now the tables are turned and the Corzine folks are hoping for some new to help turn the tide in the New Jersey race. [Of course Deeds hopes the thesis has a longer shelf life than the Bush link did for Corzine.] The main difference between the two races is that Corzine is running on his record from the last four years and New Jersey voters, at least the ones seemingly likely to head to the polls in November, don't like it. The upcoming debates may have some impact, but will anyone be paying attention? That's a problem for the incumbent.

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About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part III

About that New Jersey Governors Poll, Part III

FHQ promised to revisit the recently released Neighborhood Research poll and its August predecessor and gauge the impact those polls would have on the race if they were included in our graduated weighted averages of the polling in the New Jersey governors race. I was going to go the whole nine yards and include a mock-up of the usual graphic I've been putting up with our updates of the New Jersey and Virginia contests. In the interest of clarity, though, I'll hold it to a simple numbers-to-numbers comparison.

I don't think anyone will be surprised by the fact that these polls hurt Chris Christie more than Jon Corzine. That the Republican has pulled in only 37% support among the likely voters in both polls is indicative of how accurate they are. Even when those polls are included amongst the others, they are barely within two standard deviations of the unweighted polling average. Corzine's distribution is much more tightly clustered. Every single one of the 39 polls conducted in this particular match up since the first of the year is within plus or minus one standard deviation of the unweighted average.

I don't want to bog you down with statistical gobbledygook, so this is just a long way of saying that both these Neighborhood Research polls are outliers and both polls put more of a drag on Christie's numbers than on Corzine's.

How much? Well, to be fair, the polls aren't helping Corzine either (other than to decrease Christie's average support). But the incumbent only loses four tenths of a percentage point (from 37.8% to 37.4%) when these polls are added to our averages. However, the comparable figure for Christie is a loss of one point (46.4% to 45.4%). In other words, the polls have twice the negative impact on Christie as on Corzine (at least in terms of FHQ's averaging of the race).

Is that a big deal? Honestly, it isn't, but in an environment where a decreasing margin is expected to some extent (Corzine catching up due to registered Democrats outweighing Republicans in the Garden state), these polls have the effect of inaccurately deflating that gap.

And that, in a nutshell, is why FHQ is looking the other way when these polls are released.

...well, sort of...


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I think Saturday was a good day for Neighborhood Research to release the results of their most recent poll of the New Jersey gubernatorial race. If people weren't already looking to the Value Voters Summit for a 2012 straw poll, they were planning on watching some football. [Yes, FHQ is aware that there are some people out there who did neither, but we're willing to bet that if you are reading this, you were looking forward to at least one of those.] In any event, it was a good day to sweep last month's snafu under the rug and move on.

New Jersey Gubernatorial Polls
Poll	Date	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Neighborhood Research	Aug. 12-21, 2009	35	37	6	22
Neighborhood Research[pdf]	Sept. 14-17, 2009	33	37	8	22

Yeah, remember their first poll. [Right, the one that led to this post to which this current one is a sequel.] It was the one FHQ was leery of because it showed Corzine ahead (???) and because the pollster was a former campaign manager of a Chris Christie primary opponent, Steve Lonegan. Well, according to Neighborhood Research's release today, that lead wasn't Corzine's; it was Christie's.

...but nevermind that we (Neighborhood Research) didn't bother telling anyone that reported this initial, how shall I put this so that it maintains a modicum of diplomacy, transcription error. Just to prove that I'm not imagining this, let's look at some (still active) screenshots from Pollster and PolitickerNJ from the around the time of the August Neighborhood Research poll.

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That's the view from Pollster, but how about PolitickerNJ?

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But if you follow the the link at this post's outset, you'll see that Christie is now the one who held that 37-35 edge during the mid-August period in which the poll was in the field. At the time, I talked about the two issues with the poll* (the Corzine lead and the potential conflict of interest) being two strikes against Neighborhood Research. Well, I think they may have just struck out.

But just so FHQ doesn't seem too jerky, tune back in tomorrow morning and we'll have a glance at how these polls (to this point excluded) would affect our graduated weighted averages of the race.

*And that doesn't even bring into the picture the small sample sizes and this quirky likely voters/definite voters distinction.


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What was it Dectective Frank Drebin said in the first Naked Gun movie as he was attempting to disperse the crowd gawking at an exploding fireworks factory?

Nothing to see here, folks.

Now, today's Public Policy Polling survey of the New Jersey gubernatorial race was certainly interesting in some aspects (It wasn't as status quo-maintaining as the Monmouth poll a day ago.), but it was not an earth-shattering revelation of Corzine's late season comeback either. Honestly, the most interesting part of both this race and the race in Virginia is that Democrats are either seemingly tired after 2008 or complacent. What else explains how a state that President Obama won by 15 points last November suddenly has a 2009 (likely) electorate that favors Obama by only two points? Democrats just aren't opting into either of these races in the numbers that they did only a year ago. And though Chris Christie is the one gaining from that situation, Jon Corzine has been continually stuck in the upper 30s (in FHQ's averaging) throughout, stymied of late by the slow growth behind independent candidate, Chris Daggett's run.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Public Policy Polling [pdf]	Sept. 11-14, 2009	+/- 4.5%	500 likely voters	35	44	13	7

What's more is that PPP compared 2005 support for Corzine against his current position and found that he has only managed to win over 62% of those that supported him just four short years ago. You won't win many (re)elections that way. Christie is even pulling in one in five of the those 2005 Corzine supporters.

Despite those rather dismal numbers underlying the toplines, the race is still within ten points (barely) and largely unchanged by the addition of this poll. But if you're after a competitive election (And what self-respecting political junkie isn't?), then Corzine will need to have moved full time into the low to mid-40s by the end of the month and be trending even further upward by then.

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/14/09)

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I'm taking a rather surly approach with this update because the narrative in the New Jersey gubernatorial race (that Corzine isn't living up to the typical Democratic electoral comeback in the Garden state) is really getting tiresome. I don't say that as a Corzine fan [FHQ is indifferent.], but rather as someone who is irritable when the same tired and false story of this trend is rolled out. Yes, recently in New Jersey politics there has been a series of elections in which the Republican did better than expected in early polling only to see that position fade down the stretch of the campaign. Mostly when this idea comes up, commentators will bring up the polling in the state from the 2004 presidential election when Bush ran consistently within (less than) 10 points of Kerry. Chris Cillizza (The Fix) at The Washington Post dusted this argument off today and carted it out for all to see and even added the Senate elections in 2000, 2002 and 2006 and the gubernatorial election from four years ago as evidence of this "trend" of Republican surge and decline.

Look, FHQ can't throw stones while living in a glass house. We've certainly done a fair amount of talking about Corzine's cushion among the electorate in a Democratic-leaning state, but we have also tried to caution that for any comeback to take place, the governor is absolutely going to have to emerge from the upper 30s rut he has been stuck in the entire year. [The real danger for Corzine now appears to be the independent candidacy of Chris Daggett, who will reportedly pull in 15% in tomorrow's Public Policy Polling release from New Jersey.] It cannot simply be a matter of Christie's support dropping off.

That said, of the elections Cillizza mentioned as evidence, the 2006 Senate race between Menendez and Kean fits the bill (and I'll have to track down the polling from the 2000 and 2002 races), but the gubernatorial race in 2005 does not. It may have been closer than expected, but at no point during the post-primary period (early June onward) was Republican nominee, Doug Forrester, ahead of the Garden state senator-turned-candidate for governor. In fact, as I have continually pointed out, gubernatorial races in New Jersey have failed to perform to the rubric of this phenomenon in every election stretching back to 1977 when Democrat Brendan Byrne became the last Democrat to pull off the comeback.

Here are the facts of the race currently:
1) Corzine is stuck in a range between about 38% and 42% in recent polling (...meaning FHQ probably has him slightly undervalued in our averaging). This has not changed since 2009 began.

2) Christie has slipped from a summer peak above the 50% mark, but has seemingly settled in to the 44-47% area of late.

3) The new poll out of Monmouth this morning did nothing to change the underlying dynamic of the race.

4) Corzine can come back but the incumbent will have to increase his stock some and continue to hope that Chris Daggett's support goes the way of so many other early fall third party supporters in other electoral arenas (ie: to one of the two major party candidates).

And none of those points is in any way consistent with the September Surge tag that is appended to all of Corzine's Twitter updates within the last few days.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Monmouth/Gannett [pdf]	Sept. 8-10, 2009	+/- 4.3%	531 likely voters	39	47	5	7

Again, the Monmouth poll was nothing new. Both candidates fit into the same ranges, but Corzine did lead among the wider, registered voter sample that was surveyed. That means zilch unless Corzine can close the so-called enthusiasm gap (which PPP is set to talk about some more with its release tomorrow) and turn those registered voters who prefer him into actual voters that can help reelect him. That may or may not be a tall order, but with the well-worn upper 30s rut the governor continues to find himself in (see below), it appears that it is.

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/10/09)

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As the calendar has turned from August to September, there is some evidence that the Garden state race for governor is tightening. And it isn't so much that Jon Corzine is gaining on Republican Chris Christie so much as it is a case of the Christie campaign showing some signs that the recent flurry of negative attention is bring the former US attorney back to earth. In fact, the Rasmussen data reflect a rather inflated sense of the race on both sides by including the firm's infamous "leaners" (undecideds or third party supporters who tip their hands in Rasmussen's view as to who of the two major party candidates they lean toward). Now, there's nothing wrong with the leaners per se -- Rasmussen made a similar switch down the stretch in the presidential race a year ago -- but during the summer the inclusion of the leaners really serves to inflate the amount of support each candidate has. Once fall dawns, though, their inclusion makes a bit more sense.

But how much of a difference are we talking about? The switch from leaners to no leaners has on average meant a four point gain for Christie and a 3.3 point bump for Corzine. No, that doesn't change the spread that much but it has for the entire summer kept Christie at or around the 50% mark in these polls. And on top of that Rasmussen mentioned in the poll write up that the eight point spread in the reported poll dropped to four in the "without leaners" version of the survey. And for all intents and purposes, that means that Christie likely would have had more of a drop in that transition than would have Christie. The effect is that Christie, in that version, likely would have dropped below the 45% mark. And that would be the first time since January that the Republican has had that small a share of support in a Rasmussen survey.

What does that mean? Well, Corzine still isn't making any jump in any of these polls, but as Mark Blumenthal at Pollster mentioned last week, the incumbent hasn't moved that much all year. All the movement has been on the Christie side. He rose and peaked in the summer and has been tracking downward of late. And what that really means is that, despite the fact that Corzine's numbers haven't budged all year, the Democrat is now more likely to pull off the Democratic comeback that has been typical of recent Senate and presidential races but has not really manifest itself in a gubernatorial race since Brendan Byrne mounted a charge in the 1977 race.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Rasmussen	Sept. 9, 2009	+/- 4.5%	500 likely voters	38	46	6	10
Democracy Corps [pdf]	Sept. 8-9, 2009	+/- 4%	615 likely voters	38	41	10	10

But Rasmussen wasn't the only polling outfit to release a survey today. [It was the most noteworthy, but not the only one.] Democracy Corp/GQR also found a tight race. But the three point spread is the same as it was a few weeks ago, though both candidates have dropped three points each since that point. All that essentially does is raise the specter of Chris Daggett in the race. If both candidates are regressing, then the independent is on the rise because the undecided total is not increasing at this late date. However, these are just two polls with Daggett crossing over into double digit support. It could be an anomaly or it could be a trend, but one thing seems to be sure: the independent with the great web ad is negatively affecting Corzine more so than Christie (or has to this point).

So how do these polls affect FHQ's graduated weighted average? Christie continues to drop closer to the 46% mark while Corzine is still camping out in the 37-38% range. That isn't significant change, but it is the state of the race in early September.

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (9/1/09)

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What effect have the negative charges levied against Chris Christie had in the New Jersey governors race? If you look at the polls that were released a today (yesterday technically), you'd be hard-pressed to conclude anything other than "not much". The fact of the matter is that Republican Christie continues to be in good shape. More often than not recently, the former US attorney has been in themid- to upper 40s in the polls (not a bad spot to be in a three person race) while incumbent, Jon Corzine has remained in the upper 30s to lower 40s range. That wasn't any different in the two polls released most recently.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Quinnipiac	Aug. 25-30, 2009	+/- 2.4%	1612 likely voters	37	47	9	6
Fairleigh Dickinson [pdf]	Aug. 24-30, 2009	+/- 4%	715 likely voters	42	47	1	6

Christie was steady in both at 47% support while Corzine hit both ends of the spectrum in his range; upper 30s in the Quinnipiac poll, lower 40s in the Fairleigh Dickinson poll. The net effect is essentially nil in FHQ's graduated weighted averaging in the race. And for the status quo trajectory to be altered in any noticeable way, there is going to have to be a fundamental and distinct change in the polling. As you can see in the figure below, despite recent fluctuations in polling (for Christie specifically), whether above or below the average, that average has basically flatlined. So despite the fact that there has been something of an accumulation of negative news coming out about Chris Christie, it doesn't seem to be flagging his support in polling. Corzine just appears to be an unpopular incumbent.

The one interesting thing in these two polls is that Corzine and independent, Chris Daggett, appear to be locked in a zero sum game (And yes, this could simply be coincidental.). As Daggett's support rises, Corzine's goes down. This trend has not made itself clear in any of the previous polling in the race, but it is worth noting that Christie's numbers and those in the undecided column are the exact same in both polls. The fluctuation is between Corzine and Daggett.

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My gut is that ultimately this is a two horse race and that most people will decide between Christie and Corzine. That implies that the 9% support Daggett is garnering in the Quinnipiac poll is a bit high. However, it isn't clear that those folks (those aligned with Daggett in that poll) would move in whole or in part toward Corzine. For the incumbent to win, though, he'll have to count on swaying both a majority of those Daggett "supporters" (and there are some supporters without quotes out there as well) and undecideds. For New Jersey (and national) Democrats trumpeting the "those Democrats will come home in November" trend (something that in gubernatorial races is not that clear), that is the hope. But the hour is getting late, Corzine is still stuck below 42% and those playing hard-to-get are sticking to their guns. Corzine has some room to grow as both these polls show him below 75% with Democrats, but like the Virginia race (though not nearly to the extent), independents are leaning toward the Republican candidate. On average (in these two polls), Christie is about 20 points up. Corzine will have to raise the bar among Democrats and close that gap among independents to have a chance.

...even with the cushion Democrats enjoy in Garden state registration.



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Have the Races Changed in New Jersey and Virginia?

Have the Races Changed in New Jersey and Virginia?

[They haven't in the polls with few exceptions.]

As we get ready to usher in the fall campaign once Labor Day passes next week, both gubernatorial races this year are at something of a crossroads. In both cases, the Democrat is trailing and in both cases, the Republican has been faced with some negative news recently. In New Jersey, Chris Christie is weathering the storm of links to the Bush administration as well as a series of personal issues. [Well, that makes it sound like a drug problem or something of that ilk. Speeding tickets and loans to subordinates aren't drug problems, but they don't come free of any negatives.] Further south, in Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell is being haunted by his own words from twenty years ago, in the form of a Regent University master's thesis.

My first reaction to the McDonnell news was that if Democrats wanted to use the thesis effectively, they would have to be selective with it and not bombard people on the chance that it could trigger a backlash. After all, the Virginia electorate that has been picked up in polls since the June primary has tilted to the Republican end of the spectrum. This news isn't necessarily going to change their minds; it might energize them further. The power of this story, though, is in its narrative capacity. Democrats and the Deeds campaign have been pushing the "this isn't the real McDonnell" card since the spring, but they now have something to hang that on and refer back to ad infinitum. Anytime McDonnell says something that in anyway links back to the thesis, Democrats will pull it into the "that's all part of his blueprint" narrative. And while there is the chance that that also risks a backlash, it is a gamble that could also play well with apathetic Democrats and independents, who have to this point remained on the sidelines in this race*. But to say that that isn't a tightrope act for Democrats and Deeds is a mistake. The degree to which Deeds can find that balance between effectively playing this (and making trouble for McDonnell) or seeming desperate will determine the direction of this race down the home stretch.

[That said, I still want an answer to Jonathan Martin's tweet yesterday (I'm paraphrasing): If the thesis is so damaging, how did oppo researchers miss it in the 2005 attorney general race or any other office McDonnell has run for?]

In New Jersey, the narrative has progressed to its second step (beyond the Bush connection). Instead of the debate being on moderate/not moderate turf, as in Virginia, this one seems to revolve around Christie's judgment (the bent of the news does lately, anyway). So, while Christie maintains a lead in the polls, you can certainly see that the stories have shifted in this race from "throw the bum out"/anti-incumbent stories to "does Christie have the requisite judgment to be governor?" stories. And that isn't a good change in the prevailing winds for the challenger.

Does that mean trouble for the Republicans currently leading the polls in both states? Possibly, but it could end up costing the Democrats if their actions are perceived as desperate. The latter is more likely in Virginia simply because of the underlying partisan composition of New Jersey. Corzine just simply has a cushion (even while trailing) that Deeds does not in Virginia.

A couple of other caveats:

1) Timing. Is this too early for a closing narrative to emerge? If either becomes established, will it be stale by time the waning days of October roll around? The press may be looking for something new by then.

2) Decision-making: I need to check on this in the gubernatorial context, but it is true that in presidential races, most likely voters have made up their minds by around Labor Day. James Campbell would also contend (and has shown) that the polling around that time of the race is also the best indicator of the November election results. I'll have to check on both, but I thought I'd throw both ideas out there. Obviously the presidential race is a bit more high-profile, which hypothetically would mean that voters may wait a little longer in a gubernatorial race.

In any event, these items merit tracking over the next few weeks.

*The Public Policy Polling survey due out of Virginia purportedly shows heightened interest from Democrats versus a month ago (and this poll was in the field before the thesis news broke for the most part). However, McDonnell still has a 2:1 advantage among independents (again, pre-thesis).


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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (8/27/09)

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Rasmussen today released a new poll in the New Jersey governors race, and the numbers were good for both candidates; depending on what numbers you were looking at. For our purposes here at FHQ, we have a rule of examining the numbers that come out of Rasmussen without the "with leaners" tag. This is something we have been doing since last summer in the presidential race. All the firm is attempting to do is to fit some of the undecideds and "other" candidate folks into the Corzine or Christie camps. Here, then, are the numbers without those leaners:

New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Democracy Corps [pdf]	Aug. 25-26, 2009	+/- 4%	608 likely voters	41	43	7	8
Rasmussen	Aug. 25, 2009	+/- 4.5%	500 likely voters	37	46	--	11

And if you look at our previous averages for this race, this particular poll nicely echoes the status quo. From that view, that's good news for Chris Christie. Of course, since the last Rasmussen poll, Corzine has held steady while Christie has dropped four points from 50% to 46%. And when the leaners are included in the totals the margin shrinks to just eight points, 50%-42%. That would appear to be good news for Corzine. And the picture is even rosier when the earlier August leaners results are compared. On August 4, Christie's lead was 13 points, 52%-39%.

Update: Of course, none of that was as good as the GQR/Democracy Corps poll that came out later in the day. Both candidates gained since the firm's poll two weeks ago, but Jon Corzine gained more, jumping six points from 35% to 41%. Meanwhile Chris Christie had half as large a jump, moving from 40% to 43%. [Though, if you look at the toplines in the link provide above, you'll see that Christie's numbers, when broken down between Christie supporters and those leaning toward the Republican, sum to 44, not 43. It is a minor quibble, I suppose, but considering the graduated weighted average has been stubborn in this race, the half point difference between running it with the 43 versus the 44 is something to take note of.] However, the net effect on the weighted average was minimal. Once the full weight was removed from the Rasmussen poll and put on the Democracy Corps poll (It was the poll most recently in the field.), the race remained stuck on 46-37 in favor of Christie.

It is troubling that the weighted average isn't as responsive in this instance given the recently polling evidence showing a tightening race. Most of that is attributable to the overall amount of polling data that had the race there in the first place. It will just take much more to pull Christie down and Corzine closer in the race in terms of the average. This weekend I'll run another regression on the polls including these and double check where that projection is. With polling likely to increase in the coming weeks as the race nears its conclusion, we will likely have ample opportunity to see such a trend continue. As for now, it appears that there is at least some tangential evidence showing the Bush link/corruption charges are affecting Christie. The Republican has been tweeting for Corzine to return to the real issues (here, here and here). [The middle link makes me think of the escaped convict from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Now you're really going to follow those links.]

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