Patrick Murray

President Barack Obama is coming to stump for Governor Jon Corzine tomorrow because Corzine has a “base problem,” according to Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray. 

Murray wrote a blog post today previewing the Monmouth University/Gannett poll set for release tomorrow – the day Obama comes to Monmouth County to stump for Corzine.  The poll results, he said, show the Governor running “relatively weak” with key groups in the Democratic base.

“Obama’s job tomorrow is to link Corzine’s fortunes to his own. In other words, Obama’s message to the Democratic base will be ‘If you don’t vote for Corzine, you’re dissing me,’ he wrote.

Murray also noted that Obama’s approval among independents in New Jersey is not enough to give Corzine a boost with that group, and even hinted that his own poll shows it could have the opposite effect. 

Click here to read Murray’s full blog post.

To get a true picture of where the New Jersey gubernatorial race stands right now, analysts and pollsters say you need to look past the horse race poll numbers and focus instead on some of the recent suveys' underlying questions.

While the head-to-head match ups demonstrate a clear trend of Republican Christopher Christie consistently leading incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine, they're malleable this early in the campaign, and fluctuations in that number- whether swings or incremental changes - should be taken with a grain of salt.  Voters, for the most part, do not start paying attention until September at the earliest.

"That's why the campaigns are paying attention to all the stuff underneath that: the favorability rating, the issue ratings," said Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray, whose organization, along with Gannett New Jersey, is releasing its own poll on Thursday.

What's clear is that Governor Corzine faces enormous political problems, and that the public is clearly in an anti-incumbent mood.  But there is still time - especially given Corzine's huge monetary advantage - to close the gap with Christie.

In the Quinnipiac University poll released today, Murray said the most important number is the 40% of voters who don't know enough about Christie to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him.  Although Christie's favorables remains net positive, there's plenty of room for his unfavorables to increase.

"That 40% who don't know Chris Christie hanging out there in this poll, that's got to leave his campaign worried," he said.

With the budget passage, state Supreme Court Justice Barry Albin’s renomination and Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie’s testimony in DC, the last five days were important for the race for governor.

So which candidate won the week?

According to three expert political observers, Gov. Jon Corzine won on points, but not by enough develop a longstanding advantage in the race.

“Maybe Corzine is a little bit ahead, but I don’t think it’s the kind of game that’s going to stick. There are too many things out there, and are people really paying attention to what happened this week?” said Ingrid Reed, Director of the Eagleton Institute’s New Jersey Project.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Christopher Christie's decision to testify in front of a congressional subcommittee next week was the logical choice, according to Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

"It was clear he was going to have to do this at some point in time," he said.

Christie will testify about a type of corporate fraud settlement called deferred prosecution agreements, in which defendants can avoid prosecution by taking on monitors and making other types of restitution.  U.S. Reps. Frank Pallone (D-Long Branch) and Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) have pending legislation reforming the way the agreements are given out, which is largely inspired by Christie.

The possible restoration of some property tax rebates for the middle-class provides much-needed good news for Governor Corzine’s reelection bid, according to Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray.

“It’s clearly the Governor’s Achilles’ heel in this race. Whatever he can do for property tax rebates is going to help him,” he said.  “There are certainly a lot of other worthy projects out there that have lost funding such as hospitals, but the most political one is property taxes.”

Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Christie has publicly sworn off political considerations in making his eventual Lieutenant Governor pick, arguing that the public will vote largely based on who occupies the top of the ticket.

But the two women said to be at the top of Christie’s shortlist – state Sen. Diane Allen (R-Edgewater Park) and Bergen County Clerk Kathleen Donovan -- each has a history of running strong in regions that are crucial to Christie’s electoral prospects, and both could help Republicans down-ballot in their respective counties.  

Christie alone will have the say on his choice for the number two spot, so he could surprise observers with his pick.  But media speculation about who he will choose has come down to Allen, who repeatedly wins reelection in a South Jersey legislative district that has a two-to-one Democrat registration advantage, and Donovan, who over the last decade has been the one Republican bulwark against the Bergen County Democratic Organization’s complete dominance and last year won reelection the most votes of any county-wide candidate, Democrat or Republican.  

“These are counties that have gone Democratic in many cases over the last few years in statewide races after having been solidly Republican for a while,” said Monmouth University pollster and political science professor Patrick Murray.  “These are counties that Christie must win.”

There’s no doubt that that the latest Quinnipiac poll numbers look much better for Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie than they do for incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine.  But the poll does contain a couple glimmers of hope for Corzine, along with a cautionary number for Christie, according to political observers. 

Meanwhile, nobody agrees on what effect independent candidate Christopher Daggett will have on the race. 

Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State, said that Corzine faces more than just the obvious problems of an upside down approval rating, a negative favorability rating, a big gap in independent support and a 10 point deficit in a head-to-head match-up with Christie.  It’s the 52% of respondents who see him as “cold and businesslike."

Former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie should win the primary tomorrow by a double-digit margin and will not have a hard time healing the Republican divide, according to four New Jersey political experts.

Montclair State Political Science Professor Brigid Harrison predicts that Christie will beat rival Steven Lonegan, the former Mayor of Bogota, by a margin of 12-15%, depending, of course, on turnout.

Patrick Murray, a pollster and political science professor at Monmouth University, gives Christie a likely win by a margin of 18% -- 58% to 40% -- assuming that about 300,000 voters show up to the polls.  A higher turnout, he said, will boost Christie's margin of victory to 22%, while a lower one will narrow it to about 13%.  He put Assemblyman Rick Merkt's (R-Mendham) likely showing at about 2%.

Ingrid Reed, who directs the Eagleton Institute's New Jersey Project, thinks that Christie will likely win with a margin "well over 10%."  But another win for Christie would be a large turnout, said Reed, because it "would signal there is momentum for the party and that the organization was organized and active."

Seton Hall Political Science Professor Joseph Marbach calls a 19% victory for Christie - 58% to 39% -- with a Republican voter turnout of about 30%, which works out to about 300,000 based on the latest available party registration statistics (whether there will be a drop off in registered Republicans since last year's presidential election remains to be seen).

Did you ever notice that polls seem to be subject to more journalistic skepticism than other numbers? Perhaps it's because there are so many polls available, and of such varying quality, that it's easy to compare and contrast differences.

On the other hand, nearly all other statistics - especially those from "official" sources - are accepted prima facie. For example, the media ran unquestioningly with a Social Security Administration story about the dramatic increase in baby boys being named Barack, although a simple journalistic inquiry would have quickly deflated that claim. Also, every press story about autism in New Jersey now includes the tag that New Jersey has the highest autism rate in the nation. However, this claim is based on a study that was done, not nationally, but in only 14 states - and even the comparability of those state results is suspect. (I'll be blogging more about this issue in a few weeks.)

Not that I'm arguing for less scrutiny of polls - far from it. My main concern is that while basic questions about all numbers go unasked before being reported to the public, it seems that only with polls do the media express doubt on the veracity of the numbers they themselves report, many times with banner headlines.

On NJN's Reporters Roundtable this past weekend, one panelist after another - including a reporter from Monmouth's own media partner - used the phrase, "if the polls are to be believed." They were discussing the New Jersey GOP gubernatorial primary and, specifically, Chris Christie's large lead over Steve Lonegan in polls released by Monmouth/Gannett and Quinnipiac last week.

Skepticism of election polls - as with any number provided for public consumption - is extremely healthy. Polls are designed to capture a snapshot of attitudes and behaviors at the time they are taken. And indeed, we tend to see a lot of consistency among reliable polls on "here-and-now" measures (e.g. a politician's job performance rating). However, polls are imperfect tools when asked to predict the future, such as an election outcome. Yet they work reasonably well and are the best tools we've got - so we use them.

Former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, above, trails former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie by 18 points in the race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination

Former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie holds an 18 point lead, 50%-32%, over former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan in the race for the Republican nomination for Governor, according to a Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll released this morning.  Assemblyman Rick Merkt (R-Mendham) is polling at 2%, with 16% still undecided.

Christie leads Lonegan 59%-25% among voters over age 60.  He has a 63%-26% lead in Central Jersey, a 49%-33% lead in North Jersey, a 45%-33% lead in South Jersey, and a 44%-35% lead in Northwestern New Jersey.  Christie has a 21 point lead in Morris County, and Lonegan leads by 10 points in Bergen County.

Lonegan leads 51%-36% among Republicans who describe themselves as "staunch conservatives," while Christie is ahead 58%-18% among moderates.   Lonegan is just slightly more likely than Christie to be seen as a "pro-life" candidate (42% to 33%).

"Chris Christie has solidified his front-runner status in this primary by increasing his appeal to the party's core conservative base.  He may not win this group outright, but he has made enough inroads to leave Steve Lonegan with little room to maneuver before June 2," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.  "Winning in November trumps any specific issue positions for Republican primary voters.  For example, Mayor Lonegan's flat tax proposal has a good deal of support within the GOP electorate, but it doesn't seem to be enough to propel him to victory," said Murray.