Ingrid Reed

Democrats think today's Quinnipiac gubernatorial poll indicates that Gov. Jon Corzine is well on his way to being understood and embraced by the electorate after making several unpopular and tough, but necessary decisions.

Republicans see the poll as demonstrating lackluster support for the Corzine, considering he's spent a combined $100 million on his two previous statewide races, and early enthusiasm for U.S. Attorney Chris Christie's potential candidacy among those who have heard of him.

Meanwhile, non-partisan political analysts see the poll as a wash, with promising and troubling results for both Corzine and U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, who is viewed as a likely gubernatorial candidate.

Corzine leads Christie in the poll, 42% to 36%, although only 37% of voters think Corzine deserves to be reelected and his approval rating remains net negative. Christie remains a relative unknown, with only 30% of respondents knowing enough about him to form an opinion.

Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union), the Democratic State Chairman, said that's the number that caught his attention. Despite dozens of positive front page headlines about his indictments and convictions of prominent public officials since he was sworn in, 70% of voters still barely know anything about him.

On top of that, although Corzine still has a net negative approval rating, he's improved significantly since the last Quinnipiac poll in September.

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It's election eve, which means that it's time to journey up the Ivory Tower to hear what political analysts think will happen tomorrow.

The four analysts PolitickerNJ.com talked to today were unanimous in predicting a big win for Barack Obama over John McCain both nationally and in New Jersey, and were nearly certain that incumbent U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) would easily beat down the challenge by former Rep. Dick Zimmer.   

They were also unanimous in picking state Sen. John Adler (D-Cherry Hill) over Republican Medford Mayor Chris Myers in the 3rd Congressional District.

Three out of four predicated that U.S. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-Wantage) would beat challenger Dennis Shulman in the 5th District, but by a narrow margin.  

Three out of four also felt that Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Fanwood) had the edge in her race against state Sen. Leonard Lance (R-Flemington) in the 7th Congressional District, while one gave Lance a narrow victory. Read More >

Gov. Jon Corzine, struggling to win the approval of N.J. voters, announced his economic stimulus plan today
Political pundits tend to agree that the surge in Democrats on the voter rolls will help New Jersey Democrats this election cycle, from those running for federal office down to freeholder.

But as Gov. Corzine pitches his economic proposals for dealing with the financial crisis today -- which many see as the second early salvo of his reelection campaign – the pundits are less clear on whether the state’s bolstered Democratic majority will provide a big boost to him next year.

Right now, the new registration numbers look good for Democrats.  Statewide, as of the latest report from the Division of Elections dated October 13th there just under 600,000 more Democrats than there were in November, 2007.  Republicans had a much more modest gain, with 176,000 new party members.

Many of those new registrants are merely voters who leaned Democratic anyway but never bothered to vote in a primary before this year.  The number of unaffiliated voters, for instance, dropped by 322,000.

But there have also been 449,000 new registrants since November, and all indications are that the newly enfranchised are trending blue.

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Salem Freeholder Bruce Bobbit to GOP opponent: "Don’t tell me I’m a freaking tow truck driver. He can kiss my ass."
In often overlooked Salem, a competitive freeholder race.

Republicans in New Jersey’s least populated county have an opportunity this year to take back a majority on the freeholder board that’s been controlled by Democrats since 2002, but they’ll need to sweep the election to do it.

“We’re counting on it,” said Salem GOP Chairman Paul Reed.

It’s not impossible.  While Democrats hold a 6-1 majority on the board, Salem is a true ticket-splitting swing county.  National and statewide voting trends don’t always correlate with local election results in this county of 64,000, where voters tend to judge local candidates by personal interaction rather than the letter next to their name.

And the county’s votes on national and statewide elections are unpredictable.  Ingrid Reed, Director of the Eagleton Institute for New Jersey Politics, noted that the county went for Al Gore in 2000 by six points and George W. Bush in 2004 by the same margin.  In the 2005 Assembly races, it picked Democrats over Republicans 58% to 42%.  But Jon Corzine only edged out Doug Forrester by two points.

In 2007, Salem elected one Democrat and one Republican to the Board of Freeholders -- each by comfortable margins.  In 2006, voters elected a Republican Sheriff and two Democratic Freeholders.  And in 2005, Sullivan won his Freeholder seat by exactly one vote over GOP incumbent David Sparks.

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On her way to a meeting of the Bergen County Democratic Organization’s executive committee this morning, State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) said she was worried that the power vacuum in the party couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“This is a time of a little bit of confusion and anarchy at a very bad time, because we’re in the midst of a campaign,” she said.  “Now I, among other things, have been quite besieged by telephone calls from very average constituents who want to work for the Obama campaign, and I don’t even know where that’s being operated out of in Bergen County.  So there are many issues that need to be discussed and sorted out that are of import to the people we elect come November 4th, and therefore of import to the people we represent.  It’s a time of confusion and a very bad and inopportune time.”

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Last week, the non-partisan Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed a hypothetical 2009 gubernatorial race in a dead heat, with U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie leading Gov. Jon Corzine by just one point - 41%-40% -- well within that poll's plus or minus 2.5% margin of error. But a new Zogby International poll released today, conducted for Garden State Equality, shows Corzine with nine point lead over Christie.

Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson said the numbers show today's poll slightly skewered towards Democrats. As of June 3rd - after a huge influx of new Democratic registrants for the February presidential primary and, to a lesser extent, Republican ones -- New Jersey had 1.68 million registered Democrats, 1.03 million registered Republicans and 2.23 unaffiliated/independent voters. The poll's sample group was made up of 331 Democrats, 226 Republicans and only 246 independent/unaffiliated voters.

"We know in New Jersey that's not exactly how the makeup goes," said Wilson.

Still, Wilson said, the poll shows troubling numbers for Corzine.

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Can’t wait until tomorrow night to see who wins the major U.S. Senate and Congressional primary contests?

Below are some predictions from pollsters, political science professors and observers who track Garden State politics.

The observers were unanimous in their predictions for the Democratic Senate primary, foreseeing a relatively easy victory for incumbent Frank Lautenberg. On the Republican end, the outlook was not so clear cut, with observers split between state Sen. Joe Pennacchio and former Rep. Dick Zimmer. Ramapo College Finance Professor Murray Sabrin will have the support of presidential candidate Ron Paul’s fans, and could take some conservative voters away from Pennacchio.

In the heated Republican primary in the 7th congressional district, state Sen. Leonard Lance is the clear favorite. The 3rd district congressional primary, however, is a toss-up. In what has been perhaps the nastiest race of the election cycle, it was tough decide who had the edge between Medford Mayor Chris Myers and Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly.

These races will likely be determined by a very small number of voters. Even the most optimistic of outlooks puts voter turnout at approximately 30%, and most say they expect significantly less than that.

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Over half a million voters have registered as Democrats during the last six months, according to the Democratic State Committee.

The DSC put out a press release today saying they’ve quantified the numbers, and that their party’s enrollment has increased by 48% in wake of the high turnout February 5th presidential primary.

The group said that Republicans had also caught “some of a tailwind,” inducting about 150,000 new voters to their ranks. 

"This is more than a trend, it's a remarkable increase in Democratic voters that will have a lasting impact," said Democratic State Chairman Joe Cryan.   "The people can't wait to bring the Bush era to an end and the best way to do that is to elect Democrats. It's not enough that the Bush Administration is coming to a close, the voters are rejecting everything with the Republican brand name."

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In preparing for a presentation I gave at the New Jersey Political Science Association meeting last week, I spent some time reviewing the exit poll data compiled by the New York Times. In assessing whether or not moving the New Jersey presidential primary from June to February was worth the reported $ 10 million it would cost state and local governments, I looked at the turnout rate and specifically the number of new primary voters it produced.

According to the Times poll, 19 percent of the 1.1 million voters participating in the Democratic primary identified themselves as "Independent," in essence unaffiliated voters. Extrapolating form the numbers, this means that approximately 210,000 new Democrats decided to participate in the primary process. Not surprisingly, a plurality of these voters supported Barack Obama (49%), while Hillary Clinton drew 43 percent and seven percent went to John Edwards

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Can't wait to see what tomorrow's Quinnipiac poll will look like? Political observers say not to count on anything too exciting.

Gov. Jon Corzine's fiscal restructuring plan will remain unpopular. Corzine's approval rating will likely take a dip, although not a huge one. And Sen. Frank Lautenberg's numbers will probably remain somewhat anemic but not too threatening.

The one thing that's close to certain is that there won't be a bump in the Governor's numbers.

"You don't have to be James Carville to figure that out," said Assemblyman Joe Cryan, who chairs the state Democratic Party. "Without knowing it, I assume his numbers will have dipped. I assume that people won't like the plan because the press discussion, in all candor, has been on one point and not on all four."

But, Cryan said, the public will likely give Corzine credit for trying to "deliver a tough message."

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