[Click to Enlarge]In Virginia, there may be reason to write off the gubernatorial race and move on, but further north in New Jersey, the story is slightly different. The race in the Garden state is shaping up to be a good one over these final two weeks. Republican Chris Christie continues to fall in the polls while independent candidate, Chris Daggett, has snatched up disillusioned supporters of the former US attorney as more and more revelations come to light. All the while incumbent Governor Jon Corzine has been biding his time, not doing much of anything in surveys the whole year. The governor has been stuck in the same 37-38% range he has been in all of 2009, yet, the Democrat is within reach of victory; something that seemed worlds away over the summer. Is it a done deal? No, but things have tightened up substantially in this race.
| 2009 New Jersey Gubernatorial Race Polling | |||||||
| Poll | Date | Margin of Error | Sample | Corzine | Christie | Daggett | Undecided |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rasmussen | Oct. 19, 2009 | +/- 4% | 750 likely voters | 39 | 41 | 11 | 8 |
| Monmouth/Gannett [pdf] | Oct. 15-18, 2009 | +/- 3.1% | 1005 likely voters | 39 | 39 | 14 | 7 |
Simply averaging the polls that have been released in the last 24 hours shows Christie with the slightest of edges (40-39), but in FHQ's estimation, the spread is a bit wider but shrinking daily. The narrative in this race -- well across this race and the Virginia race -- from will the Republican(s) win to "is this going to be a split" with one Democrat winning and one Republican winning. And what does that mean for 2010?
What does it mean for 2010? Nothing. It means that two bad candidates, who have run bad campaigns will have potentially lost. The lesson? Don't run a bad campaign. Oh, and try not to be a bad candidate. [Jack brought up a good point in the comments. The two candidates I was apparently (and admittedly) ambiguously referencing above were Chris Christie and Creigh Deeds. Of course, that naturally opens up the discussion as to whether Deeds and/or Christie are bad candidates.]
In New Jersey, though, things continue to be knotted among the two major party candidates with independent Chris Daggett rising coming down the stretch.
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3 comments:
Has Corzine really run a bad campaign? He's been successful in moving up in the polls, though that's not a terrible surprise. Of course, having money doesn't hurt.
Also, I'd debate whether Christie is such an awful candidate. Yes, he's had some ethical issues, but nothing disqualifying, and I've heard that he's overweight, too. But he does have a record to point to, and he does have a moderate image — enough so that he had to fight off a serious challenge from his right in the primary. (Anyone remember Steve Lonegan? That seems so long ago.)
I should probably have specified a bit more. I was referring to Christie and Deeds there and not Christie and Corzine. Corzine has run a fairly good campaign. He hasn't made things worse for himself and has benefited from Christie's foibles and Daggett's emergence.
Christie's overweight? Next you'll tell me Corzine is bald.
I think Christie is as good as the GOP could have done. But they really should have done some oppo research on themselves. Like John Kerry, he just hasn't been ready to or effective at combating some of the issues that have confronted him since Labor Day. Christie does have a record to point to, but that record overlaps to some degree with George W. Bush and that link works against him in New Jersey.
Neither he nor Deeds have been particularly adept at running general election campaigns.
I can say all that, yet, Christie is still in the race or slightly ahead. The momentum is moving against him, but the votes have not been counted yet. And hey, I still have him ahead in the averages.
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