Wednesday, October 28, 2009

HORSERACE

Quinnipiac Sees a Different New Jersey Race Than Rasmussen, PPP

Well, today's Quinnipiac poll gums up the works in New Jersey. Yesterday two pollsters seemed to suggest a bit of momentum: Rasmussen had Chris Christie up 3, and PPP had Christie up 4, with a seemingly sensible explanation: Christie had gone negative on third-party spoiler Daggett, and some Daggett backers were starting to shift back to Christie.

This morning, Quinnipiac puts Corzine up 5, the biggest lead he's had in their poll all year.

One of my readers wonders about the Quinnipiac sample, noting that Corzine leads 79 – 8 percent among Democratic likely voters, with 10 percent for Daggett.Christie leads 79 – 7 percent among Republicans, with 9 percent for Daggett, and Christie leads 45 percent to 30 percent among independent voters, with 20 percent for Daggett.

But New Jersey is a blue state, and we should expect the sample to have more Democrats than Republicans or Independents. The question is, how many more? This seems like a particularly hard set of circumstances to get a good read on who's likely to show up. Last year's 44D-28R-28I split isn't likely to be replicated without Obama on the ballot. But the mood of the state is angry, with unemployment high and voter disatsifaction high. But then again, it's been a miserably negative campaign, making people sick of all the candidates and perhaps losing interest in the race.

10/28 09:03 AMShare