I’ll be the first to say I don’t quite know how the voters in New Jersey who show up on Election Day will break down in terms of their partisan preferences. It’s an off-year election, and the state has been deluged with attack ads, so maybe some folks are turned off by the whole process. I thought the state historically had a high percentage of independents.
CNN’s exit poll of the state last year – obviously, a presidential year, with big turnout driven by Obama – split 44 percent Democrat, 28 percent Republican, 28 percent independent. In 2006, CNN’s exit poll was 41 percent Democrat, 28 percent Republican, 31 percent independent.
So a pollster can reasonably project a big partisan split. But then again, Jon Corzine has pretty miserable approval ratings, and most polls this year suggested even Democrats aren’t that enthusiastic about him.
Yesterday I noted that ”the SUSA sample split seems pretty strange – 38 percent Republican, 42 percent Democrat, 18 percent independent.”
Well, another poll out today puts Corzine ahead, 41 percent to 38 percent. The Democracy Corps sample splits 37.2 percent Democrat, 31.9 percent Independent, 29.4 percent Republican.
Christie’s winning independents 36 percent to 25 percent, but in their sample, Corzine is now doing better among Democrats than Christie is among Republicans.