Another poll has landed in the race for New Jersey governor, and it tells a pretty similar story to a number of other nonpartisan polls released in recent weeks: Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) has a lead, but not a big one.
According to the new poll from Rutgers-Eagleton, Sherrill leads former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville) among likely voters by a five-point margin, 50% to 45%.
Sherrill’s lead over Ciattarelli in Rutgers-Eagleton polls has slowly collapsed over the course of the general election campaign. In June, Rutgers-Eagleton put Sherrill up 51%-31% – a somewhat unbelievable result that was trashed by the Ciattarelli campaign – while in August, the pollster found Sherrill leading by a more realistic 44%-35% margin.
“As all eyes turn to New Jersey’s governor’s race as a test of the nation’s political mood, the contest has narrowed in its final weeks,” Ashley Koning, the director of Rutgers’s Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, said in a release accompanying today’s poll. “Polls show a close race as voters tune in and opinions solidify, but the outcome will ultimately hinge on each campaign’s turnout operation.”
Predictably, both candidates have enormous leads among voters of their own party in the new poll (95% of Democrats for Sherrill, 94% of Republicans for Ciattarelli). Unaffiliated voters, who could make or break either campaign, prefer Sherrill 49% to 40%.
The two candidates each have advantages on different statewide issues. Ciattarelli is trusted by more voters on crime and safety (49%-35%), taxes (44%-37%), the state economy and jobs (46%-40%), and the state budget (45%-39%); Sherrill is more trusted on health care (50%-35%) and education (47%-40%); and the two candidates are almost exactly tied on affordability and infrastructure issues.
Both candidates now also have negative net approval ratings, likely the result of the millions of dollars that have been spent lambasting one another on TV; Sherrill is viewed favorably by 42% of voters and unfavorably by 45%, while Ciattarelli is slightly deeper underwater at 41%-47%.
Three polls released last week all found results matching Rutgers-Eagleton’s numbers: Fox News put Sherrill up by five points, Quinnipiac put her up by six, and Fairleigh Dickinson University put her up by seven. A pro-Ciattarelli super PAC also found a small Sherrill lead in a poll released earlier this week; the only poll throughout the entire campaign to find Ciattarelli ahead was a September internal poll commissioned by Ciattarelli’s own campaign.
Both candidates are clearly treating the race as highly competitive, as are the national parties eager for a win in one of two gubernatorial elections on the ballot this year. National Democrats in particular have become deeply involved in the race, spending tens of millions of dollars on Sherrill’s behalf and sending in surrogates like former President Barack Obama.
The Rutgers-Eagleton poll was conducted from October 3-17 with a sample size of 795 likely general election voters and a margin of error of /- 4.7%.
