State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (11/1/09)

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While the special election in NY-23 may have forced Virginia's gubernatorial race on the backburner, the race for control of the New Jersey executive branch has not met a similar fate. The Garden state contest is every bit as close as things in the 23rd if only lacking in sheer unpredictability. Many talked about Corzine coming back to win, but the incumbent certainly took his time getting started on that trail, and may have an independent candidate's catching fire in the closing weeks for the tightening margin between the Democratic governor and Chris Christie, his Republican rival.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Monmouth/Gannett [pdf]	Oct. 28-30, 2009	+/- 3%	1041 likely voters	42	42	8	5
YouGov/Polimetrix [pdf]	Oct. 27-30, 2009	+/- 4.4%	780 likely voters	43	41	8	8

The two polls released today in the race did nothing to change that. Christie and Corzine are knotted in the low 40s and Chris Daggett seems to be fading slightly heading into Tuesday's vote. Whether that makes his supporters rethink the wisdom of casting a ballot for a third party candidate dropping in the polls, though, remains to be seen.

As for FHQ's averages, they continue to show a tightening race. The margin between the two major party candidates has now slipped below four points with Corzine flirting with the 40% mark and Christie narrowing in on the 43% level. With just a couple of days left for polls to emerge in this race, it is likely safe to say that, unlike other sites that have shown Corzine take the lead, that won't be the case here. There isn't enough time and won't be enough polls to change that in our averages. That said, we will offer an alternative model that shows slightly different results on Monday. It isn't an official change, but it will make for an interesting comparison.

Stay tuned...

Of course, there may be a new poll out in this race before then.

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (11/1/09)

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/31/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/31/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (11/1/09)

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Is anyone even paying attention to this race anymore after what's happened in the special election race in New York's 23rd congressional district? Nah, I didn't think so. However, the two polls that were released today in the Virginia gubernatorial race confirmed what was already known about the contest: Republican Bob McDonnell is heading for a decent sized victory on Tuesday night.

FHQ, in its post-mortems of the 2008 election, discussed the idea that Obama could have ceded about nine points across the board and still would have won in enough states to clear the 270 electoral vote barrier. Virginia was among the states that would have swung over to the red column had that been reality. Sure, we're talking about an off-year election with lower-than-usual turnout, but the swing from a year ago to now in Virginia has been fairly remarkable. Democrats just never got on board with Creigh Deeds and were not as enthusiastic about this election cycle in the Old Dominion as their partisans across the aisle. Would anyone else have made a difference or was McDonnell just destined to become Virginia's next governor (as the occupant of the White House has dictated for the last three plus decades -- Republican in the White House/Democratic Virginia governor and vice versa)?

We political scientists like to attempt to determine whether a campaign has mattered. It is always easiest to see at when a contest is close, but in runaway elections, campaign effects are harder to come by. Yes, they matter, but often only at the margins. We certainly saw that in this race during McDonnell's thesis fallout. Things tightened for a few weeks but there was a decided regression to the mean after that point. It wasn't unlike a kind of convention bounce. And Deeds got two bounces throughout this process: 1) the thesis and 2) his primary victory in June. Other than those two times, McDonnell was in the driver's seat in this race.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
YouGov/Pollimetrix [pdf]	Oct. 27-30, 2009	+/- 4.5%	742 likely voters	40	53	7
Mason-Dixon	Oct. 28-29, 2009	+/- 4%	625 likely voters	41	53	6

Where does that leave us now? Again, it doesn't leave very far away from where we were a day ago. McDonnell has opened up a double digit lead not only in the most recent polls, but in FHQ's averages as well. And no, he's not looking back. The only real question for Virginia on Tuesday is how much Deeds' performance at the top of the ticket is going to affect the down-ballot races. The Senate is not up for grabs this year in Virginia, so the Democrats will maintain their slim advantage in the chamber. However, the rest of the governing apparatus in the Old Dominion is likely to be controlled by the Republican Party. And that leaves this interesting divide between Virginia at the state level and Virginia at the national level (gave Obama its 13 electoral votes a year ago and elected two Democrats to the Senate over the last two cycles).

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/31/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/31/09)

On Overseas Military Voting and September Primaries: Epilogue/Prologue

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/31/09)

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FHQ is a day late on the updates in New Jersey and Virginia, but it was all for a good cause. Of course, we wanted to do our yearly homage to Halloween, and what better way to do that than in the context of the gubernatorial races in the Garden state and the Old Dominion. [I still like last year's celebratory Halloween post better.]

I had the pleasure of talking with my two favorite New Jerseyans tonight about their thoughts on the gubernatorial race in the Garden state. Both are politically knowledgeable and extremely independent thinkers who spend five to six months out of the year out of the state taking in the rest of our beautiful country. If I had to guess -- and they certainly aren't terribly up front about this -- one is a Democratic leaner and the other is a Republican leaner. And that's if I was forced to guess.

Needless to say, I was excited to have the opportunity to speak with them once I found out they were passing through on their way home to vote on Tuesday. Sure, it is nice to look at poll numbers -- representative ones at that -- but the chance for a two respondent poll was too much to pass up.

The results? Bad news for Corzine.

The money quote? "We're going home to vote; not to vote for someone, but to vote against someone."

President Obama was efficient at "banking" early votes a year ago. A year later, Jon Corzine, the incumbent Democrat Obama is trying to pull over the finish line in this race, has a couple of unbanked votes trekking the final leg of their yearly odyssey across the United States coming home to the Garden state. No, my friends aren't necessarily the bellwether that a state like Missouri has been on the presidential level, but they are a pair of what Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling has identified as grudging voters; arguably the face of this election on Tuesday.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Rasmussen	Oct. 29, 2009	+/- 3%	1000 likely voters	43	46	8	3
Stockton/Zogby	Oct. 27-29, 2009	+/- 3%	1093 likely voters	40	39	14	6

What does any of this mean? Everything and nothing in the close race that is being depicted in the representative samples that are being polled about this contest. The race for governor is still one that finds the two major party candidates consistently within the margin of error of each other. The two surveys from Rasmussen (no net change from earlier in the week) and Stockton/Zogby didn't stray from that pattern. The former found Republican Chris Christie ahead by a handful of points while the latter (the first poll from this collaboration statewide in this race) found Corzine up a point.

And independent Chris Daggett? Well, he's still the wild card. No, the former Republican is not likely to win on Tuesday, but he and those grudging voters will go a long way toward deciding who will eventually win on November 3. Daggett has leveled off in FHQ's averages of this race (between the 10 and 11 point range). Meanwhile the margin between Corzine and Christie continues to shrink. Christie is still ahead, but that lead is under 3 points now.

And incidentally, I think I've got a couple of Daggett voters staying with me tonight.

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/31/09)

On Overseas Military Voting and September Primaries: Epilogue/Prologue

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/29/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/31/09)

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FHQ is a day late on the updates in New Jersey and Virginia, but it was all for a good cause. Of course, we wanted to do our yearly homage to Halloween, and what better way to do that than in the context of the gubernatorial races in the Garden state and the Old Dominion. [I still like last year's celebratory Halloween post better.]

The news in Virginia didn't change all that much on Friday. In fact, it didn't change at all. The Daily Kos/Research 2000 numbers were leaked on Thursday, and according to the time stamp, we're up on Thursday as well (at some point), but when FHQ went to (virtual) press, they had yet to be posted. No, that isn't a huge deal, but we cannot incorporate a new poll in to our averages until the time frame in which the poll was conducted has been determined. Without that the poll cannot be properly weighted. Regardless, the underlying message was still the same. Despite the fact that Creigh Deeds topped the 43% mark (for just the third time in all of October), Republican Bob McDonnell still led, and led by double digits. Deeds did have an over two to one advantage over McDonnell in Northern Virginia and narrowly edged the former attorney general among women, but those figures were easily offset by how well McDonnell is doing in this poll in the rest of the state (outside Northern Virginia -- a nearly two to one lead) and among men (a three to two advantage).

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Daily Kos/Research 2000	Oct. 26-28, 2009	+/- 4%	600 likely voters	44	54	2

The one stat that continues to give McDonnell much of his cushion is how well the Republican is doing among independents in the Old Dominion. That effect is muted in the Kos survey results compared to other recent polls, but is still high enough for McDonnell to maintain a healthy lead over his Democratic opponent (18 points).

What does that mean for this race? Not much. Well, it doesn't mean anything more than we already knew. Bob McDonnell holds a decided and comfortable margin over Deeds heading into Tuesday's election, and it would take a significant upswing in Deeds' likely turnout numbers and a severe bout of complacency among McDonnell supporters for this one to be anything but a McDonnell win. The true test in this race won't likely be when the race is called so much as how quickly.

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Recent Posts:
On Overseas Military Voting and September Primaries: Epilogue/Prologue

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/29/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/29/09)

On Overseas Military Voting and September Primaries: Epilogue/Prologue

Earlier this week President Obama signed into law the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act. FHQ has commented on this piece of legislation a few times already (see here, here and here), but it never hurts to reiterate the highlights. The main product of this bill (now law) is that states with primaries set too close to the general election (less than 45 days before) are now faced with having to accommodate military personnel and others overseas. That has the effect of either forcing states to shift their primaries to earlier dates in order to comply or to submit a waiver request.

Now that MOVE has been signed into law, the real work will begin. There are over a dozen states that that are affected. And it is more than just September primary states (see first link above for September primary states affected) that are affected. Obviously primary election certification takes time (see Florida 2000 in the presidential election for an extraordinary example) and that makes some August primary states like Colorado and Washington vulnerable to this new law as well. Of course, with more states affected comes a variety of responses to what is required.

They range from the conciliatory...

"You can’t print a ballot until you know who won,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, who is urging his state’s lawmakers to shift the Sept. 14 primary by at least a month. “And you can’t print ballots in five seconds. It takes several days to print a ballot. Then you have to put them in the mail."

"Old habits die hard and a September primary certainly is our tradition,” [Vermont Secretary of State, Deb] Markowitz said. “I strongly believe that if we made a change to August, politicians would adapt, voters would adapt."

...to the resistant:

“Our system of allowing people to delay voting until closer to Election Day is better in terms of making an informed choice,” [Washington state election official Katie] Blinn said.

“Things just don’t get going here until September,” said [Wisconsin Board of Elections spokesman, Reid] Magney.

Washington and other states may have a good argument for a waiver based on the fact that they accept and count overseas ballots a few weeks after the actual election date. The Evergreen state may have to expand that some. But the guidelines behind which states are granted waivers is still undecided. The folks running the Federal Voting Assistance Program will work in consultation with the US Attorney General's office to decide which states, if any, will be allowed an exemption. The vacation argument from Wisconsin is a valid one, but is a bit thin consider many of these same states have presidential primaries in the dead of winter when weather may be preventing voters from getting to the polls.

Most states, however, will likely do what Nevada did (independent of this law change) earlier this year: move their late summer and fall primaries to earlier dates.

Hat tip to Ballot Access News for the link to the reactions story.


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/29/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/29/09)

Palin's Poll Numbers Look a Lot Like Quayle's

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/29/09)

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Further north in New Jersey, the race for governor is shaping up to be a potential all-nighter. [Well, we have to have at least one every election cycle, I suppose. It won't be in New York City or Virginia.] FHQ will resist the urge to say that Corzine has comeback from the dead in this contest. Sure, the governor has inched up slightly of late, but he can't claim to have momentum other than to say that the race is tighter in a traditionally blue state. Fine, that could be considered momentum to some degree, but it pales in comparison to the negative momentum Republican Chris Christie has had in the surveys that have been released over the last handful of weeks. His descent since the end of September (at least in FHQ's measure -- see below) has been a marked contrast to the steady state that was typical of his summer in the polls. [There's no doubt that others saw a more pronounced gain for Christie during June and July.]

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Democracy Corps [pdf]	Oct. 27-28, 2009	+/- 4%	604 likely voters	43	38	12	7
Daily Kos/Research 2000	Oct. 26-28, 2009	+/- 4%	600 likely voters	41	42	14	3
Survey USA	Oct. 26-28, 2009	+/- 4%	640 likely & actual voters	43	43	11	3

Those differences aside, this race is much closer than it was when the temperatures were hotter outside. You don't have to look much further than the three new polls released today to see that. But the race is so close, in fact, that people are starting to take note of things like the difference between the method in which polls are conducted -- via live interview or an automated phone call. FHQ mentioned this yesterday and Nate Silver has added his two cents on the matter today. I'm not trying to say I was on top of this first. I wasn't. Jim Geraghrty pointed it out first. Regardless, if you look at the chart at FiveThirtyEight you'll see that Corzine does well in live interview polls and Christie fares best in the automated surveys. Given FHQ's averages at the outset of the post, it is pretty easy to see that, at least statistically, we come down on the side of the automated polls. Our numbers reflect that side more. But that may be more a function of the fact that those polls have been more prevalent throughout the year (Those three polling firms alone make up about a third of the total number of polls conducted since the first of the year.). If you take the FiveThirtyEight data for what it is on the surface, we can look at the averages across the two types of polls and call it a tie; at least a race within the margin of error.

And that's likely where this one is headed on election day. For now, though, we grade Christie as slightly ahead of Corzine with the margin continuing to shrink.

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/29/09)

Palin's Poll Numbers Look a Lot Like Quayle's

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/28/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/29/09)

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The race for governor in Virginia is a lot like Michigan in last year's presidential race after the McCain campaign decided to cut their losses and spend their time and money in other states: It isn't any fun when it isn't competitive. Sure, there was some hope that we'd be treated to a close race when the thesis news broke and sunk in about a week or so later. That, though, came a bit too early for Deeds and ended up being a false front anyway. The thesis contributed to this to some degree in that it sidetracked the Deeds campaign for a while, but they never developed a tight message around and/or beyond that one thing to sustain them. So when the thesis effect wore off, Deeds didn't have anything to fall back on. Such is life on the campaign trail.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Roanoke College	Oct. 21-27, 2009	+/- 4.1%	569 likely voters	39	55	6

Despite the fact that we know there is a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll floating around out there, FHQ cannot incorporate it into the averages in this race without the full information of the poll. Mainly, without the date the poll was conducted, we can't construct the weight that would be applied to it. When that information is made available we will update the averages accordingly.

In that poll's absence, however, there was but one survey released today. Roanoke College, like many other recent polls, found Bob McDonnell topping the 55% mark; the fourth poll of the last five to have him at or above that level (And the fifth found him at 54%.). While McDonnell is heading up, Deeds is heading down. Well, his decrease doesn't appear to be at as high a rate as McDonnell's increase, so it basically looks as if the Democrat is leveling out and shifting downward slightly. Again, that really isn't a position you want to be in during the final week of the race.

Adding in this one poll shifts McDonnell up to 51.4%, a new high water mark for the former attorney general of the Commonwealth, but also moves Deeds down below 41% for the first time since FHQ began examining this race. Where does that leave us? Well, the state of this race is red and not competitive.

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Recent Posts:
Palin's Poll Numbers Look a Lot Like Quayle's

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/28/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/28/09)

Palin's Poll Numbers Look a Lot Like Quayle's

From Brendan Nyhan posting at Pollster:

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Once perceptions are formed, they are difficult to break. And we all know how Quayle 2000 turned out. He didn't make it to Iowa. Will Palin?

Incidentally, Jonathan Bernstein over at A Plain Blog About Politics has an interesting take on how Palin fits into the 2012 field; like an issue candidate (a la Kucinich or Paul) but with a much bigger following. I aptly, in my opinion, draws a parallel between her and Jesse Jackson's run in 1984. It's an good read; check it out.


Recent Posts:
State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/28/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/28/09)

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State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/28/09)

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FHQ is going to go with a Twitter-like, quickie post of the events of the day in both Virginia and New Jersey.

Like in Virginia, the polling in New Jersey maintained the status quo in this race.

The new Quinnipiac poll today mirrored the PPP poll from yesterday except that the two major party candidates traded positions

There was an interesting discussion about the difference between polls based on live interviews or a recording over the phone.

Phone polls are showing Christie ahead. Interviews favor Corzine.

2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Quinnipiac	Oct. 20-26, 2009	+/- 2.8%	1267 likely voters	43	38	13	5

Still, this poll represents a six point gain for Corzine over the last Quinnipiac poll two weeks ago.

Unlike yesterday's PPP poll though, this one showed Daggett supporters opting for Christie over Corzine by a 43-27 count.

The PPP count of Daggett supporters found Corzine had the advantage 44-32. Again, there's a difference in poll type there.

As I said, this one merely maintained the state of the race from a day ago. Here at FHQ that means Christie is slightly ahead.

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Recent Posts:
State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/28/09)

CNN 2012 GOP Primary Poll: Huckabee Pulls in Almost a Third of Support

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/27/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/28/09)

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FHQ is going to go with a Twitter-like, quickie post of the events of the day in both Virginia and New Jersey.

If the worst thing that can be said about your campaign is that complacency may set in, you're in pretty good shape. --Giuliani on McDonnell

That pretty much sums it up in Virginia. The day after Obama rallied with Deeds, the talk from the Republicans concerned complacency. Ouch!

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Rasmussen	Oct. 27, 2009	+/- 3%	1000 likely voters	41	54	4
Virginia Commonwealth [pdf]	Oct. 21-25, 2009	+/- 4.9%	625 likely voters	33	51	15

VCU's poll is its first in the race. The undecideds are higher than would be expected, but McDonnell's total seems about right.

That 33% for Deeds is off, but it wasn't the most recent poll and didn't affect the averages that much.

This Rasmussen poll is akin to the PPP survey a day ago. This one's gone from "feeling" like a 52-45 race recently to a 55-44 race now.

FHQ's averages didn't shift that much. McDonnell held steady and Deeds shifted downward slightly. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

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Recent Posts:
CNN 2012 GOP Primary Poll: Huckabee Pulls in Almost a Third of Support

State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (10/27/09)

State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/27/09)