After a seven-year hiatus from
the world of New Jersey polling, the Quinnipiac University Poll is
back, and – much like almost every other pollster talking to New
Jersey voters this year – it finds Rep. Mikie Sherrill
(D-Montclair) with a modest lead in the race for
governor.
According to the poll, which was conducted from September 11-15
with a sample size of 1,238 likely voters, Sherrill leads former
Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R-Somerville) by a margin of eight
points, 49% to 41%.
Sherrill, who’s represented
North Jersey’s 11th congressional district since 2019, is also
viewed more favorably by the state’s voters than her opponent. 40%
of voters view her favorably and 29% view her unfavorably, while
Ciattarelli – who remains widely known from his prior near-miss run
for the governorship in 2021 – has a favorability ratio of
40%-39%.
The man that both are trying to
succeed, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, posts lukewarm job approval
ratings of 48%-44%. That’s far better, though, than President
Donald Trump, who has an approval rating of 41%-55% just a year
after unexpectedly coming closer to carrying New
Jersey than any
Republican presidential candidate since George H.W.
Bush.
Other recent polls have
similarly found Sherrill with a lead: 45%-37% in a mid-July
Fairleigh Dickinson
University poll, 44%-35%
in an early August Rutgers-Eagleton
poll, and 47%-45% in an
early September poll from the GOP polling firm National Research
Inc. No poll has yet
been publicly publicly released that finds Ciattarelli
leading.
Despite Sherrill’s persistent
polling lead, though, both parties still view the race as
competitive. Sherrill and Ciattarelli, who will
meet for their first of
two debates this Sunday, have both been aided by national groups
eager to see a win in New Jersey, including an enormous
$23 million
investment from national
Democrats on Sherrill’s behalf.
Quinnipiac University, which is
based in Connecticut, was once New Jersey’s gold-standard pollster,
releasing regular polls of New Jersey’s major statewide elections
alongside surveys of how voters felt about their state leaders,
major policy issues, and top news stories like Bridgegate and
Hurricane Sandy.
After the 2018 election,
however, the pollster pulled out of the Garden State, with the
exception of one poll in 2020 focused on Covid in the New York
tri-state area. It was largely supplanted by Monmouth University as
New Jersey’s gold-standard pollster, but Monmouth announced earlier
this year that it would shutter its polling
institute.
Quinnipiac’s final
poll of the 2018 U.S.
Senate race between Senator Bob Menendez and Republican challenger
Bob Hugin wasn’t far off the mark: the poll put Menendez up by a
55% to 40% margin, and he ended up winning 54% to 43%.
The pollster also essentially
nailed the 2017 governor’s race, giving now-Gov. Phil Murphy
a 53%-41% lead
over then-Lieutenant Gov. Kim
Guadagno shortly before Murphy prevailed 56%-42%. Quinnipiac’s
earlier polls of the same race, though, were overly pro-Murphy;
its mid-September
poll, the equivalent of
today’s poll testing Sherrill and Ciattarelli, put Murphy up
58%-33%.
The Quinnipiac University
poll was conducted from September 11-15 with a sample size of 1,238
likely general election voters and a margin of error of /-
3.9%.
The post Sherrill up by eight points over Ciattarelli in new
Quinnipiac poll appeared first on New Jersey
Globe.
