Monmouth Poll: In New Jersey, Obama leads Romney 50%-42%, Menendez leads Kyrillos 44%-35%

Likely New Jersey voters favor President Barack Obama over GOP nominee Mitt Romney by 8% and U.S. Senator Bob Menendez over State Senator Joe Kyrillos by 9%, according to a Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll released this morning.

Regarding the Senate race, Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray said, “There is certainly more room for a GOP upset in the Senate race than the presidential one here in New Jersey, but it’s a contest that few voters are taking an interest in.”

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Did Christie’s Popularity Plunge 11 Points in One Week?

Which poll is closer to reality?  Quinnipiac or Monmouth?

How two respected independent pollsters could have such differing results for Governor Chris Christie’s approval ratings has been the subject of quite a bit of chatter this week since Monmouth University released their poll indicating that Christie’s ratings were 11 points lower than reported by the Qunnipiac poll released last week.  Quinnipiac reported Chrisite’s approval rating at 59%-36% while Monmouth said that 50% of registered voters approve of the job that Christie’s doing compared to 38% who do not.

There’s been enough buzz about the difference that Patrick Murray, Polling Director at Monmouth, posted a piece on his blog (cross posted on Politickernj), that took a swipe at Quinnipiac for framing their approval question in such a way that Christie’s numbers would be higher.  Murray said that because Quinnipiac first asked if Christie would be a good selection as a Vice Presidential nominee, respondents were more likely to give him higher marks when asked to evaluate his job performance.

Quinnipiac, on the other hand plays around with the order in which they ask the governor’s job rating question.  In 8 polls over the past year, they asked Gov. Christie’s job rating as the first question in 3 cases and the 3^rd question in one case.  For the remaining four polls, the governor’s rating question was slotted from #10 and #13 in their questionnaire.

When it was the first question, the governor’s positive job rating was only 44% to 47%.  At the number 3 slot, it was 53%.  At #10 or later in the interview, it ranged from 55% to 59%.  It’s worth noting that the lower poll numbers came early last year, and were either closer to or even lower than other polls conducted at that time.  Hmmm.

In the most recent Quinnipiac poll, one of the questions preceding Gov. Christie’s rating presented him as a potential nominee for Vice President.  In other words, the survey framed the governor as a national figure before asking voters to rate his job performance.  Could this be why his rating among Republican voters in particular shot up to an astronomical 92%?

Pollsters know that job approval ratings can be impacted by the context of a poll interview.  That’s why most pollsters try to place these key trend questions in the same place in every questionnaire.  This increases our confidence that any changes in a politician’s ratings are due to real shifts in opinion and not an artifact of questionnaire inconsistencies.

I’m willing to venture that first naming Chris Christie as Mitt Romney’s potential running mate before asking New Jerseyans to rate their governor might have had a wee bit to do with the two polls’ divergent trends.

Mickey Carroll, Director of the Quinnipac Polling Institute, is not interested in getting into a pissing match with Murray.  “Patrick Murray is a very good pollster,” Carroll said three times in a seven minute phone interview with MMM.  “Every poll is different, something could have happened in the week in between the two polls,” Carroll said, “we asked the question the same way.”

When told that Murray said that Quinnipiac framed the approval question by first asking a question about Christie being a potential VP, Carroll said, “that could make a difference, but I think we asked the approval question first. Didn’t we?  Patrick Murray is a good pollster, a savvy analyst and a smart guy.”

Republican strategists, who would only speak on background, were quick to criticise Murray and side with Quinnipiac.

“The Quinnipiac poll from last week showing the Governor’s job approval at 59% is closer to reality,” said one strategist who cited internal GOP numbers,  “The problem with the Monmouth University poll is that it samples, ADULTS, rather than registered voters, or better still, likely voters.   It is cheaper and easier to poll adults, because there  are a lot more of them and they are easier to qualify.   It is harder, and more expensive, to find and poll a likely voter – especially a likely voter who votes in non-Presidential year elections.”

When told that Murray blamed the difference on how Quinnipiac framed the question, the same strategist said, “Patrick is out of his mind.”

In fairness to Murray, MMM verified that Quinnipiac and Monmouth both sample adults who then self identify as registered voters.  However, on their website Quinnipiac says that they ask screening questions, plural, to determine who is a registered voter.  Murray said Monmouth only asks one question to determine if a respondent is registered to vote or not. He said that 80% of his respondents tend to be voters.  78% of New Jersey adults are registered to vote.

In his blog post, Murray acknowledged that his Monmouth poll results are consistently more favorable to Democrats while Quinnipiac’s are consistently more favorable to Republicans.  MMM asked Murray how that could happen consistently if both polls were using random computer generated phone numbers.  “Is it how you weight the sample?” we asked. “That’s part of it,” Murray said, “the rest is that we (Monmouth) call a greater percentage of cell phones.  Cell phone users tend to be younger and more Democratic.”

With that answer, that weighting his samples more heavily towards Democrats and cell phone users, Murray seemed to be confirming the Republican complaints.

“That’s fine, I’m the only one who consistently asks the trend question in the same place,”  was Murray’s retort, “that’s polling 101.”

Another Republican strategist was more upset about how Murray wrote up his poll release that he was with the numbers.  “Political sands are shifting?” asked the Republican.   “It’s a margin of error shift!  Murray sounds like he is writing press releases for the Democratic State Committee, not acting as an independent pollster from an esteemed New Jersey university.”

A third Republican scoffed at the notion of even taking Murray’s numbers seriously, pointing out how badly Monmouth Gannett polled the 2009 gubernatorial race between Chrisite, former Governor Jon Corzine and Chris Daggett.  “Murray’s last poll in that election had Corzine winning by 2 points and Daggett getting 8% of the vote.  Christie won by 5 points a few days later.”

MMM set out to find a Democratic strategist to weigh in on the difference between the two polls, but no one would talk to us.  “Try Patrick Murray,” was the best answer we got.

UPDATE

Murray called shortly after this piece was posted to ask that if his 2009 gubernatorial results were going to be used against him, that his correct calling of the 2010 CD-6 congressional race also be mentioned. 

During the 2010 congressional race, MMM analysed a Monmouth Poll that indicated Congressman Frank Pallone was leading Anna Little by 11%.  MMM concluded, using Monmouth’s data, that Pallone’s lead should be 9%.  Murray agreed, “your turnout assumptions are as good as mine,” he said.  Things got funky when the Little campaign issued a press release announcing that Murray had revised his numbers based upon MMM’s analysis and that Pallone’s lead was then in single digits.  Murray issued a release stating that his “official” numbers hadn’t changed.  He issued a later poll that indicated Pallone’s lead was down to 7% and in the final days of the campaign said a Little victory “could well happen.”

When Pallone eventually won by 11%, Murray said he was right all along.

It was all great fun for MMM, except that Murray stopped taking our calls for a while.

In his call this afternoon, Murray reiterated that the primary difference between the recent Quinnipiac poll and his poll about Christie’s approval ratings, is that Quinnipiac changed their methodology by altering the order of the questions.

Regarding polling adults vs polling registered voters, Murray said he was not in the business of electing or reelecting any candidate.  He said his job is to report on what New Jersey residents are thinking.

Murray also said that his “poltical sands are shifting” comment in the poll release was a reference to New Jersey Democrats who being more aggressive in how than they go after Christie than they have been in the past.  It was not a reference to the public’s approval of Christie, he said.

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Monmouth Poll: Voters Like Christie, They Don’t Like Property Taxes

Patrick Murray has a new poll out this morning.

55% of New Jersey registered voters approve of Governor Chris Christie’s job performance. 37% disapprove.  Among men Christie has a 17% net positive rating.  Among women, net positive 6%

While still upside down, the state legislature’s ratings have improved.  39% disapprove of the legislature, the best rating they have had since 2007.  56% disapproved in April of 2010.  The legislature’s approval rating remained steady at 35%.  Murray didn’t say so, but it would stand to reason that voters feel better about the legislature due to Christie promoting how they have compromised with him.

Property taxes remain the most pressing concern of New Jersey residents.  Murray asked respondents to rank Trenton’s priorties on a 1-10 scale:

New Jersey‘s Pressing Issues

(rated on a 10 point scale)

Tier 1:

8.9 Reducing property taxes

Tier 2:

7.7 Reducing income taxes

7.6 Increasing minimum wage

7.4 Reforming teacher tenure

7.3 Raising millionaires tax

Tier 3:

7.0 Reforming drug sentencing laws

6.7 Restructuring higher education

Tier 4:

5.8 Expanding charter schools

5.1 Same sex marriage

While same sex marriage  is a low priority for New Jersey residents, 52% now favor allowing same sex couples to marry compared to 34% who oppose. For the first time since the question has been polled, residents who strongly favor same sex marriage exceed residents who strongly oppose by a 32% to 25% margin.

The poll, including data tables and Murray’s write up can be found here.

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MMM Year In Review – March

Governor Christie’s flirtation with the national media and GOP fundraisers over running for president started to build momentum during March.  He told reporters in Washington that he wouldn’t be governor in 2014.  He told the National Review’s Rick Lowry “I already know I could win” the presidency.

The Monmouth County Freeholders suspended three SCAT drivers who had called out sick on February 25 but were caught on camera protesting labor reforms in Trenton.  State Senator Joe Kyrillos praised the Freeholders for their action and stepped up his call for civil service reform.

Anna Little told The Auditor that she was thinking of running for U.S. Senate instead of Congress.

Peter Burnham was suspended as Brookdale College President on March 3.   On March 9 Burnham resigned.

Citizen journalist James O’Keefe embarrassed NPR and came to Monmouth County as a Special Guest Speaker at the Bayshore Tea Party Group’s St. Patrick’s Day Celebration.  O’Keefe ended up being embarrassed himself over the press coverage of the event which included accurate reports that he did not want the event videoed.

Monmouth University Pollster Patrick Murray accurately predicted that Dr. Alan Rosenthal, the tie breaking member of the legislative reapportionment, would choose the Democrats new legislative map.  Murray based his prediction on Rosenthal’s scholarlly work espousing “continuity of representation,” i.e.,  that there is a value to voters being continuously represented by the same legislator after redistricting.

Even though MMM debunked the value of “continuity of representation” and the Bayshore Tea Party Group submitted a constitutional map, Rosenthal did indeed side with the Democrats, thereby assuring Democratic control of the legislature at least until the 2021 election.

After months of reading MMM, former Democratic Assemblyman and triCityNews publisher Dan Jacobson had an epiphany and registered as a Republican.   Jacobson started submitting his weekly columns to MMM and prepared to challenge Senator Sean Kean in old 11th district Republican primary. 

Spring Lake Councilman Gary Rich received the Monmouth GOP’s endorsement for Freeholder.  Rich received 25 votes from the screening committee.  Manalapan Mayor Andrew Lucas received 23 votes and Wall Committeeman George Newberry received 22 votes.  Howell Mayor Bob Walsh removed himself from contention prior to the committee vote.

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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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Does Congressional Seniority Matter? Should It Trump Competitiveness?

In a piece published at Politickernj and on his Real Numbers blog, Monmouth University Polling Director Patrick Murray argues that district competitiveness should be less of a consideration in drawing the new congressional map than he argued it should have been in the state legislative map.

Murray says that no other state uses competitiveness as a criteria for drawing their maps and that New Jersey would be at a disadvantage if it did so.

“If you were expecting me to argue the same for the Congressional redistricting process, though, you would be wrong.  The influence of any state’s delegation is based largely on their influence with the upper echelons of Congressional leadership.  Absolute seniority in itself is not important, but some degree of longevity is necessary for members of our delegation to establish those important relationships.

Since few other states use competitiveness to guide their redistricting process, New Jersey would be put at a disadvantage if it did.  Even if it made a concerted effort, our commission could probably only create 3 to 5 truly competitive districts – out of 435 nationwide.  While that might boost voter turnout in those districts, it would do little to increase the influence of New Jersey as a whole. Influence that we sorely need, considering how little we get back in federal spending for every tax dollar we send to Washington.”
 

While this argument is consistent with conventional thinking about congress, I’m not sure that it matches up with the current reality in Washington. 

It certainly does not match up with the current reality of the New Jersey congressional delegation, by Murray’s own words in the last sentence.  If we are getting so little back from Washington with our current delegation, most of whom have significant longevity, what good is their seniority doing us?  Would be do much worse, or any worse, with a bunch of freshmen?

In the current congress, the freshmen are running the show, much to the chagrin of the left wing media, the White House and everyone else who thinks congressmen should go to Washington to compromise rather than to do what they promised their constituents they would do during the campaigns.

New Jersey congressmen have an inauspicious history of leadership and influence.  Donald Payne and Frank Pallone are the most senior Democrats in the New Jersey delegation.  Neither have ever been leaders of note in Washington. Neither has an impressive record of getting legislation passed.

Republican Chris Smith is the longest serving member of the New Jersey delegation.  No one can deny that Smith is a leader.  He has had more legislation passed that any other member of congress.  His influence as a human rights advocate and champion of the unborn is global.  However, he is not a congressional leader.  Even with his 30 years on the hill and Republicans back in power, he is not a committee chairman or even a sub-committee chairman.

Robert Menendez has been an exception to New Jersey’s lack of congressional leadership.  He catapulted over Pallone, Payne and many other Democrats throughout the country in establishing himself as a congressional leader, eventually becoming the third highest ranking Democrat in congress before moving up to the Senate.

Worse for New Jersey residents than the lack of influence in congress that our representatives have, is some members’ lack of concern for the will of their constituents.  As Murray said during his appearance on the Real Jersey Guys Radio show on August 2, New Jersey members of congress vote however they want, regardless of how constituents feel about an issue, because gerrymandering has made their jobs so safe.

This is clearly the case in Monmouth County, the majority of which is divided between Frank Pallone’s 6th district and Rush Holt’s 12th.  Murray accurately portrays the 6th and 12th as among the most gerrymandered districts.  As a result of how these districts have been drawn in the past, much of Monmouth County is essentially disenfranchised from congressional representation.  One could easily make an argument that the suburban areas of Pallone and Holt’s districts do not have a congressman, while the urban areas have two.

Murray and I agree that congressmen need incentive to serve and represent their constituents.  There is no incentive like competition.   The congressional redistricting commission should make competiveness a prime consideration in drawing the new map.  Without competition, seniority is not all that is cracked up to be, as New Jersey’s congressional delegation has clearly demonstrated.

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A Case For Competitive Congressional Districts

By Art Gallagher

Giving credit where it is do, The Asbury Park Press Editorial Board got one right in their recent editorial lamenting the closure of Fort Monmouth’s commissary.  They give a quick summary of the disaster the closure of Fort Monmouth is and how the entire BRAC decision to close the fort was based on faulting economic and home security data.

Fort Monmouth’s closure and the move of its operations to Aberdeen Maryland was a huge waste of money that compromised national security.  An investigative series by Asbury Park Press reporters Bill Bowman and Keith Brown (which is no longer linkable) documented the waste and fraudulent numbers that BRAC gave Congress to justify the closure.

In their editorial, The Asbury Park Press accurately lays the blame:

The closing of the base was based on faulty economic and security research in the first place, and yet even with the facts on their side, Reps Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, along with Sens. Lautenberg and Menendez could not carry the day.

That is largely due to the fact that the faulty economic and security data was uncovered by Bowman and Brown after Congress had already voted to close the fort.  Pallone, Holt, Lautenberg and Menendez didn’t have the juice to uncover that data before or during the BRAC hearings when it might have made a difference.  Worse, the didn’t have the juice needed with their congressional colleagues to keep the fort in New Jersey.  Maryland’s delegation had the juice.

This latest insulting failure is just one in a decades, maybe centuries, long example of ineffective congressional representation from New Jersey.  Not just Pallone, Holt, Lautenberg and Menendez, but most of the delegation. Every two years during congressional elections challengers complain that New Jersey only gets a fraction of the money we send to Washington sent back, but it never changes.  Has there ever been a House Speaker from New Jersey?  Name on U.S. Senator from New Jersey who could be considered a historic figure.

As Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray indicated during his interview on the LaRossa and Gallagher Radio Show two weeks ago, New Jersey Congressmen have little incentive to represent the interests or philosophies of their constituents.  They vote how ever they want and work on, or don’t work on, whatever they want without regard for the good of their constituents because no matter what they do, their jobs are safe.  Historically, gerrymandering as assured that an incumbent member of congress will be reelected time after time except in the rarest or circumstances.

A competitive congressional district map could go a long way to improving the quality of representation New Jersey gets from the people we send to Washington.  Currently, Congressmen face no consequences for failures like the BRACing of Fort Monmouth.  Despite the rants of congressional challengers every two years about the about of money that New Jersey sends to Washington vs the amount of money that comes back, that situation never changes and our representitives have little incentive to work to change it.

If competitive congressional elections were the norm, rather than a rare exception, New Jersey would get better representation and better results.

New Jersey’s Redistricting Commission has a huge opportunity to create an environment that could lead to an major improvement in the quality of our representation in Washington over the next decade.  If past is prelude, the Democrats and Republicans on the commission will spend the process jockeying for influence with the “13th tie breaking” member.  The commission will predictably produce a winning map for one party which will be a losing map for the other party. 

For New Jersey to have a “winning map” would require at least one party to propose a competitive map based upon population and geography only without regard for the residency of incumbents or the historical voting trends of residents, and for the “13th member,” former Attorney General and Acting Governor for ninety minutes, John Farmer Jr, to do the right thing.

Otherwise, it won’t really matter much which party “wins” the redistricting battle.  New Jersey’s representation in Washington will not likely improve if the people will send there have little incentive to work for it.

By the way, Lautenberg and Pallone are scheduled to make a “surprise announcement” in Belmar tomorrow. 

Pray for rain. 

Maybe Lautenberg is announcing his retirement and endorsing Pallone to replace him.  Not likely, but one can hope.

More likely they will announce some legislation they are sponsoring that will probably never become law or some appropriation they are proposing or maybe even secured that will not have nearly postive impact on New Jersey that the negative impact that the closure of Fort Monmouth will have.

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Christie’s Polling Numbers Rise Significantly

Patrick Murray: Governor May Be Escaping Voters Dissatisfaction With Property Taxes, Managing Expectations

By Art Gallagher

Governor Christie on the Belmar boardwalk with vacationing teenagers from Pennsylvania. Photo credit: NJ.com

Governor Chris Christie’s polling numbers have improved significantly since May. 

A Monmouth University/NJ Press Media(Gannett) poll released this morning indicates that 50% of New Jersey registered voters approve of Christie’s performance while 41% disapprove.   A May18 poll by Monmouth University had the Governor with a 46% approval rating  and a 49% disapproval rating among registered voters.

This is a HUGE 12 point swing in only 3 months.  

Unfortunately, Monmouth Polling Director Patrick Murray’s narrative of the poll, and the subsequent mindless media coverage focused on the respondents dissatisfaction with property taxes and other issues, rather than their increasing satisfaction with Christie’s performance.

To his credit, Murray acknowledged as much in a candid phone interview with MMM. 

When asked why the Governor’s numbers improved so much Murray said, “I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting such a big swing, we should have asked different questions.”

You’ve got to appreciate Patrick’s candor.

Murray noted that the Governor’s ratings had a similar trend last year, declining during the budget debate and bouncing back after the budget was settled. “It could be that once the crying over the budget cuts is finished, people are more positive.”

Murray speculated that Christie may be able to rise above New Jersey residents dissatisfaction with property taxes and manage their expectations better than his predecessors. “He seems to be managing people’s expectations of how much can be done about property taxes.”

This poll should have been should have been broken up and reported as 1) Voters satisfaction with Chrisite and 2) Voters concerns over the issues that Christie is dealing with.   Voters concerns with property taxes, improving schools and the budget are ongoing issues that every governor deals with.  This poll tells us that voters are responding favorably to Christie, despite their frustration with the issues.  It doesn’t tell us why.

Elsewhere in the media you will read that voters are giving Christie only an average grade and that they are not happy with with how he is handling property taxes, education, etc.  

The media is missing the story.

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Does NJ Support Gay Marriage? It Depends

By Patrick Murray

A new PPP poll shows that a clear majority of New Jersey voters oppose gay marriage.

“Hang on a minute,” you say.  “All the media reports I saw on that poll say that New Jersey supports gay marriage.  Are you off your rocker, Murray?”

No, I’m not.  I just read the entire press release sent out by the pollster.  I found information in the very first paragraph that could lead a reasonable person – or at least an astute reporter – to conclude that this poll shows that most New Jerseyans do not support the recognition of gay marriage.

Here’s why.  The poll asked two questions.  The first question asked simply if “same-sex marriage should be legal or illegal?”  And being a basically fair-minded lot, more New Jersey poll participants sided with making it legal by a not overly wide 47% to 42% margin.

However, the pollster followed that with a different question – one more reflective of the reality that exists in New Jersey right now.  If the choice was between gay marriage, civil unions and no recognition at all, the public evenly splits between gay marriage (41%) and civil unions (40%).

If you add the group who choose civil unions to the 17% of those polled who oppose any kind of legal standing for same sex couples, you arrive at a sizable 57% who oppose gay marriage when civil unions are an option, as they are in New Jersey.

To its credit, the polling firm, Public Policy Polling, not only asked both questions butreported the results for both in the first paragraph of their press release.  However, they presented this information under a headline claiming there is unequivocal public support for gay marriage in New Jersey.  And they semantically underplayed the apparent contradiction in the two questions’ results. 

 Hmmm, I wonder if this Democratic polling firm may have an agenda?  Fair enough.  They did clearly show all the results of their poll, after all. 

The real problem is that the media blithely went along with the storyline fed to them by the polling firm – even when contradictory evidence was put right in front of their eyes. See here, here (with a blatantly inaccurate headline claiming “even Republicans support same-sex marriage”), here (which bizarrely interprets 41% as a “majority” – no wonder we’re falling behind the rest of the world in math), and here.  [Note that the text of at least one of these online articles – although not the headline – has been modified after I contacted reporters about this.]

Usually when a poll has contradictory information or the pollster has an agenda, a critical observer really has to do some work to uncover the red flags.  That means reading deeply into the background information that a pollster is willing to provide, as one New Jersey columnist did recently (see the last two paragraphs).  Many times you don’t even get this information to review (in which case, don’t report the poll at all!)

For this poll on gay marriage, though, the conflicting information was presented with a flashing neon sign.  Yet, no reporter bothered to say, “How would I report these results if all I had was the question results without the pollster’s interpretation?”  If they had, I bet the headlines would have been less clear-cut about where the public stands on this issue.

And that would have reflected the reality that public opinion on gay marriage is not clear-cut.  As I wrote over a year ago, nearly a decade of polling on this subject in New Jersey and elsewhere shows that opinion on this issue is malleable.  The current poll underscores this fact.

When Democrats in the poll were asked the up or down marriage question, 64% supported it.  And when they were presented with the civil union option, a full 59% stood by their original position.  Republicans were similarly steadfast – only 23% supported same sex marriage in the limited option question and a similar 20% said the same when civil unions were added to the equation (although it’s worth noting that most Republicans do in fact support civil unions).

Independents, on the other hand, were swayed by the context of the question.  On the straight up or down marriage question they divided 46% for to 36% against.  But when civil unions were given as an option, support for same sex marriage declined by a sizable 13 points to just 33%.

Bottom line:  This poll provides clear evidence of the ‘softness” in public opinion on gay marriage in New Jersey.  About 4-in-10 are solidly for it and 4-in-10 are solidly against it, but the remainder are liable to change their opinion.  And with this changeable group rests the majority.  Therefore, as the public debate on this issue resumes, public opinion will continue to shift.

There.  that wasn’t so hard, was it?

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ICYMI: The LaRossa and Gallagher: Real Jersey Guys On The Radio

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