State of the Race: New Jersey Governor (8/19/09)

Yeah, it has been a while -- almost a month in fact -- since the last polling update in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. I moved. What can I say? Anyway, here are the polls we've yet to incorporate:

New Jersey Gubernatorial Polls (July 31-Aug. 18)
Poll	Date	Corzine	Christie	Daggett	Undecided
Democracy Corps [pdf]	Aug. 11-12, 2009	35	40	10	15
Quinnipiac	Aug. 5-9, 2009	40	46	7	6
Daily Kos/Research 2000	Aug. 3-5, 2009	40	48	--	9
Rasmussen	Aug. 4, 2009	37	50	--	8
Monmouth/Gannett [pdf]	July 29-Aug. 2, 2009	36	50	4	8
Public Policy Polling [pdf]	July 24-27, 2009	36	50	--	14

Before I get into the specifics, let me make a note on the inclusion of one poll (Democracy Corps) and the exclusion of another (Global Strategy Group). I'll admit, I wrestled over including the Democracy Corps poll, but ultimately fell back on what I did regarding the polling outfit during the presidential campaign. I included them. Again, I'm cognizant of the fact that what were dealing with here is an organization that leans left, but I draw the line between partisan leaning and partisan aligned in these cases. FHQ would not, for instance, use the numbers from a Republican Governors Association poll, but we are in the habit of accepting the numbers from right leaning Strategic Vision. The same is true in this case. The Democracy Corps numbers are included while the New Jersey Democratic Assembly sanctioned Global Strategy Group poll is not.

And yet, despite its inclusion, the Democracy Corps poll is not putting Corzine in the lead, or even closing the gap substantially with Christie.

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Over nearly a month's time, then, Corzine has remained stationary while Chris Christie has dropped less than half a point. And most of the latter's drop is attributable to the most recent poll, which it is safe to say is an outlier given the state of most of the other polls. Corzine has gotten more aggressive in terms of pushing the Bush/Christie link of late and that will have to stick to some significant degree for the incumbent to pull Christie back down to earth. I will say this: If Corzine can string together a series of good polls, it will be much easier for the media to take up the "comeback" story (as something different in the race) and for the race to fall into line with "this is the Democrats coming home to Corzine" pattern we've all been primed to expect. Of course the competing storyline is that this race and the Virginia race are harbingers of a Republican resurgence at the national level. Virginia will have something to say about that, but FHQ will have more on the state of the race in the commonwealth tomorrow.

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The trendlines above aren't terribly exciting, so I may try and add in the actual polling fluctuations along with the FHQ average trendline to provide a more informative picture of the progress. Be on the lookout for that in the next update.


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