FDU: 1/3 of NJ Adults Can’t Name The Governor

Governor Phil Murphy

Only 67% of New Jersey adults can name the governor, according to a poll released this morning by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

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FDU Poll: 55% of New Jersey voters approve of Christie but don’t know why

In the first poll conducted by their new Executive Director, Dr. Krista Jenkins, FDU’s Public Mind Poll found that 55% of New Jersey’s registered voters approve of Governor Chris Christie.  The electorate is divided over whether they like the governor for his personality or his policies.

36% say they like Christie and his policies, 29% don’t like him personally or his policies. 14% like his personally but don’t like his policies while another 14% like his policies but not his personality.

Christie suffers a gender gap.  61% of men approve of his performances compared to only 49% of women. 54% of men say the state is on the right track, compared to 44% of women.

FDU did not distinguish between registered voters and likely voters.

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FDU Poll: Voters Don’t Like Obama, But He Still Wins

Farleigh Dickinson’ Public Mind released a poll this morning showing President Obama beating Mitt Romney 46%-42% and Newt Gingrich by 48%-42%. 

Rick Perry trails the president by 53%-35%,  Michele Bachman tails by 57% to 30%.

The nationwide poll of 855 registered voters says that 70% of voters say the United States is on the wrong track.  46% of the respondents disapprove of Obama’s performance.  45% approve.

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Christie’s Numbers Still Climbing

By Art Gallagher

Governor Chris Christie is enjoying his highest approval ratings to date in New Jersey, according to a Monmouth University/NJ Press Media Poll released this morning. 

55% of registered voters approve of the Governor compared to 37% who disapprove.  Among women there was a 15 point swing in favor of the governor.  53% of women approve while 40% disapprove.  In an August Monmouth poll, 45% of women approved of Christie and 48% disapproved.

Among Independents, 58% approve of Christie and 34% disapprove.

Monmouth Polling Director Patrick Murray’s questions and his narrative of the poll focused on the national attention that Christie has enjoyed during his fund raising trip, his speech at the Reagan Library, and the speculation over whether or not he would run for president.  Christie’s preparation for and response to Hurricane Irene were not specifically addressed in this poll.

Despite his increased popularity, New Jersey is not optimistic that Christie will be able to forward his agenda through the Democratic legislature.  54% of New Jerseyans say that the Democratic leaders in the legislature are not working well with Christie compared to 32% who say they have been working well together.  Among Independents, 59% say the Democrats and Christie are not working so well together.

Today’s Monmouth poll is consistent with the FDU poll released on September 27.   In the FDU poll, while 54% of New Jersey voters approved of Christie, 47% said that the state is on the wrong track.

As on wrote after the FDU poll and as InTheLobby wrote yesterday  Christie has an opportunity to lead the electorate into giving him a more cooperative legislature, just as he led the electorate to defeat 59% of the school budgets in 2010 when his approval numbers were not nearly as strong as they are today.

Christie has said that he doesn’t think the legislative elections will be a referendum on his performance “given the map” that is gerrymandered to favor a Democratic legislature.  In a normal year, Christie would probably be right about that. 

However this is not a normal year. It is not normal for a sitting governor to enjoy 55% approval ratings when unemployment is at 9.4%  half way through his term.  With the exception a the few “competitive” districts, there has been no campaign to speak of.  Christie has an opportunity here to close the gap between Democrats and Republicans in the legislature.  Taking control of at least one house of the legislature is not impossible.  It is not likely, but it is not impossible if Christie asks the electorate to give it to him.

I hope he does.

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What is we held an election and nobody cared? Part 3, The 12th Legislative District

Part 1.  11th Legislative District

Part 2. Part 2a.   13th Legislative District

Prelude from Part 1:

In seven five weeks New Jersey voters will have the opportunity to elect an entirely new state legislature.

Patrick Murray’s Monmouth University/Neptune Nudniks poll conducted in August indicates that New Jersey voters disapprove of their legislature by a 48%-35% margin.  Democrats disapprove by 45%-38%.  Independents, the majority, disapprove by a whopping 50%-28%.  Surprisingly, Republicans approve of the legislature by a 45%-41% margin.  Public workers disapprove by 55%-26%.

Based solely on those poll results, one might expect that we’d be in the middle of a spirited campaign with Democrats and public workers rallying to throw the Republicans out of office.  Obviously that is not the case.  Democrats control the legislature that their base and Independents disapprove of strongly.

Due to Dr. Alan Rosenthal’s decision that New Jersey voters are better off being continuously represented by legislators they don’t know, there are only a handful of competitive legislative races.  The Democrats will continue to control the legislature for the next two years.  Probably the next ten years.

Part 3

Now that Governor Christie has put an end to the presidential speculation and passionately reitierated his commitment to fixing our broken state, one might think that an election with every seat in the legislature up for grabs coming up in five weeks would be an opportunity for Christie to foward his fixes by picking up support in the legislature.  Christie’s poll numbers are surging in New Jersey.  An FDU poll last week indicated that 54% of New Jersey voters approve of the job he is doing.  FDU also indicated that 47% of New Jersey voters disapprove of President Obama’s performance, down from dramatically from a May poll after Bin Laden was killed that indicated 56% of New Jerseyans approved of Obama.

Yet Christie apparently doesn’t see an opportunity.  During the Q&A of his press conference yesterday the Governor said that he doesn’t see the upcoming legislative election as a referendum on his performance “given the map.”  Once again the conventional wisdom is that the only vote that really mattered in this legislative election, and the next four, was the vote that Dr. Alan Rosenthal cast as the tie breaking member of the Legislative Reapportionment Commission adapting the Democratic gerrymandered map that assured “continuity of representation.”

Now that Christie is focused only on New Jersey maybe he will launched an unexpected campaign to defy conventional wisdom and the Rosenthal/Democratic map. During his fund raising trip last week the New Jersey GOP was one of the beneficiaries of his efforts.  Christie has moved the electorate in unexpected ways previously.  During the 2010 school board elections he called for New Jersey to defeat school budgets in towns where teachers would not agree to contribute to their healthcare.  Could that be done in a legislative general election against a gerrymandered map?  Its wishful thinking on my part.  I would love to see him try it but would be more surprised if he did than if he didn’t.

12th Legislative District

Like the 11th and 13th districts, the 12th has more registered Democratic voters than Republicans, according to Labels and Lists.   The district is compromised of the northern part of Burlington County (6,448 registered voters), Old Bridge in MiddlesexCounty (34,626 registered voters) Western Monmouth County (43,861 registered voters) and the Ocean County towns of Jackson and Plumsted (36,656 registered voters).

Despite a voter registration edge for the Democrats, 29,702 to 27,482 Republicans and 64,407 Independents, the district is considered among the safest of Republican districts.  On the September 14 Real Jersey Guys Radio Show political strategist Chris Kniesler called the district “deep red.”

The Republicans expected to cruise to victory on November 8th are Assemblyman Sam Thompson, Old Bridge in the old 13th district ,who is running for Senate, Assemblyman Rondal Dancer, Plumsted of the old 30th district, and Monmouth County Freeholder Director Rob Clifton, Matawan, running for Assembly.

I honestly didn’t know that names of the Democratic Assembly candidates before reading The Asbury ParkPress’s write up on the district.  They are Catherine Tinney Rome and William Spedding. The Asbury Park Press didn’t say where they are from.

The Democratic Senate candidate is Robert Brown of Old Bridge.  Politikernj describes Brown as a “veteran loser.” He ran against Thompson for Assembly in the old 13th in 2007 and in 2009.  In 07 his running mate was Middletown’s Patricia Walsh.  In 09 he ran with Middletown’s Jim Grenefage.

While Brown doesn’t stand a chance against Thompson, he is providing some comic entertainment to the campaign.  He has forsaken his liberal Democratic bonafides and is attempting to run to the right of Thompson.  He has a Republicans for Brown website and has attempted to use twitter to bait this website and Save Jersey into supporting his candidacy.

Brown wants the campaign to be about Thompson’s state pension.  He contends Thompson, 76 years old, is “double-dipping” because he is collecting his legislative salary and the pension he receives as a result of working for state health department for 22 years and the NJ Turnpike Authority for 3 years.   Brown says he will give up his $14K per year police disablity pension if elected to the Senate where he would earn a $49K salary.  He says Thompson should give up his $49K pension.   Thompson says he won’t.

Brown collects a disablity pension as the result of an 1981 incident where he was shot in his hand and shoulder. He killed the perp who shot him.  Brown recovered from his wounds and went back to work with the Old Bridge Police Department for five years when he requested a disability pension due to lingering physical and psychological disabilities.   He finally retired from the Old Bridge PD in 1988, seven years after the shooting, and litigated his pension for another 11 years before prevailing in the  NJ Superior Court Appellate Division.

In response to Brown’s numerous tweets trying to bait me into his nonsense, I tweeted back that he must not have recovered from his psychological disablities because he is crazy if he thinks I am going to help him get elected.  I have no doubt that if Brown were a Senator he would recover his Democratic roots and do whatever Steve Sweeney told him to do.

While Brown wants the election to be about Thompson’s pension and his own heroism which he has been trying to parlay into a political career for years, The Asbury Park Press decided the campaign is about the horse racing industry.

In reality, unless something very unexpected happens, the 12th district race is a campaign about nothing as the Republicans will win a low turnout election easily with no credible opposition.

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A Dumb Poll

By Art Gallagher

Fairleigh Dickinson University released a PublicMind poll this morning that indicates that U.S. Senator Robert Menendez would beat bio-tech entrepreneur John Crowley in a hypothetical matchup for the U.S. Senate election that will happen next year by a margin of 45%-26%.

50% of the respondents have never heard of Menendez. 

The Hudson County Democrat first went to the Senate in 2006 to complete Jon Corzine’s term after Corzine became governor.  He was elected to his own term over State Senator Tom Kean, JR the following November.  Prior to being appointed to the U.S. Senate by Corzine, Menendez represented the 13th congressional disrict in the House of Representatives for 15 years.

50% of the voters don’t know Menendez.   The conclusion of the poll should be that the PublicMind is empty.

84% of the respondents said they never heard of Crowley.  Why would they?  He’s a private citizen who has never run for office.  He is an impressive figure, to those who have heard of him.  He was written up in the Wall Street Journal eight years ago and there was a movie, Extraordinary Measures, starring Harrison Ford about his efforts to find a cure to a disease that inflicts his children.   Brendan Fraser played Crowley in the movie.

Extraordinary Measures was not exactly a blockbuster.  It didn’t make Crowley a celebrity.   Maybe if FDU polled Menendez against Fraser it would have been a closer poll.  Maybe not.  If they polled Menendez against George of the Jungle or Dudley D0-Right, film characters Fraser played in the 90’s, it might have been closer.

Menendez outperformed Crowley so handily in the PublicMind Poll released today because he was identified in the questions as the incumbent and as a Democrat.   If the question had been, “Who do you favor for U.S. Senate in 2012, Robert Menendez or John Crowely?” without identifying Menendez’s status as incumbent or either man’s party affiliation, the results would have been very different.

If FDU PublicMind follows their usual pattern, they will shortly release match ups between Menendez and other GOP potential contenders for the 2012 U.S. Senate race.   The polling was done between May 16 and 22.  They release the data and their conclusions piecemeal. 

With the exception of polls that rate the executive, the President and the Governor, the conclusion will most always be that the public is not paying attention.

MMM demonstrated that conclusion in March when we conducted person on the street interviews to see if members of the public could possibly care about “continuity of representation,” the abstraction that Rutgers professor and legislative map selector Alan Rosenthal invented to justify gerrymandering. 

We repost the video of those interviews today for your amusement and dismay:

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