Patrick Murray is emphatic that his next poll will be negative for Christie
By Art Gallagher, [email protected]
UPDATE 4:15PM: Murray says Magyar/NJSpotlight mischaracterised his analysis. Read the next chapter here.
Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray already knows that his next poll about Bridgegate and the Mastro Report, will have an negative outcome for Governor Chris Christie.
Murray is quoted by Mark Magyar in a NJSpotlight piece posted this morning saying emphatically that his next poll will have negative results.
“The Mastro report raised more questions than it answered about what is going on in the Christie administration,” Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, noted. “Now, the release of the memos has raised even more questions, including questions about the credibility of the Mastro report itself.”
Murray said he could not imagine what Christie and his top advisers were thinking when they settled on their current legal and political strategy. “Every time they put something out, they undercut their credibility,” he said. “Everything they do provides fodder that keeps this investigation alive and keeps this story alive. The report was overly protective of the governor, and now everyone is looking through the memos to see what the report left out. Nothing gets settled, everything looks worse.”
A Quinnipiac Poll released last week showed that 56 percent of New Jerseyans regarded the report as a “whitewash” and only 36 percent believed it to be a “legitimate investigation.” Even more ominously, 65 percent of voters knew of the Hoboken case, and 57 percent of that group believe Zimmer’s allegation that the Christie administration improperly withheld Sandy aid from her city because she refused to support the Rockefeller Group development.
Murray said he expected to see similar results in his next Monmouth Poll. “It will be negative. This is not going to be positive,” Murray stated emphatically, asserting that the controversy over the Mastro report clearly resonated with voters. “The question now with Christie is, ‘Have we hit a floor where a certain percentage of people will defend him no matter what, and everyone else will attack him?’” (emphasis added)
Murray enjoys a well-earned reputation for producing polls that most accurately match the results of elections in New Jersey. However, his declaration of a poll’s results before he’s asked a question raises serious questions about his credibility as a political scientist and the perceived “independence” of his analysis.
In fairness I should point out that it is possible that Murray already conducted his survey and hasn’t reported the results yet.
Posted: April 16th, 2014 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: 2016 Presidential Politics, Bridgegate, Chris Christie, Dawn Zimmer, Hoboken, Monmouth University Poll, NJ Media, Patrick Murray | Tags: Bridgegate, Mark Magyar, Mastro Report, Monmouth Poll, NJSpotlight, Patrick Murray, Randy Mastro, Robert Del Tufo | Comments Off on Patrick Murray is emphatic that his next poll will be negative for Christie