New Jersey Governor, polled by Democracy Corps (D), 10/6/09-10/7/09, MoE +/- 4%
Jon Corzine (D) 41
Chris Christie (R) 38
Chris Daggett (I) 14
Democracy Corps (who uses Greenberg Quinlan Rosner as their pollster) is a frequent provider of polling data, both on a national level and in key states. While they are an outfit affiliated with the Democratic Party, it is fair to say that they have a solid reputation of putting out numbers that hit fairly close to the fairway. In fact, their numbers are as likely to be overly pessimistic of Democratic fortunes than they are to be overly optimistic of them.
They confirm what a poll earlier this week by Fairleigh Dickinson revealed earlier in the week: the days of calling Republican challenger Chris Christie the favorite in the New Jersey Governor's race are pretty much done.
What has prompted the collapse of Chris Christie's inevitability? It is not, to be fair, due to any large-scale resurrection of public affection for Jon Corzine. Although his favorabilities have improved over the course of the year somewhat, he is still fairly deeply in negative territory (37/46).
What has changed is simply this: as Christie has become better-known and more well defined, voters are not liking what they see. As a matter of fact, the Democracy Corps survey is the first that shows Christie with a weaker spread in his favorabilities (30/42) than Corzine.
A second factor, of course, is Chris Daggett. The former Republican, who is running as an Independent, for the first time seems to be drawing disproportionately from the GOP rank-and-file. As expected, Daggett is nearly at parity with his two rivals among Independent voters (check the crosstabs in the link at the top of the story for these internals). However, he now draws in just single digits with Democrats, while drawing in the teens among Republicans. This is a substantial switch from earlier surveys: in an early September poll from the same outfit, Daggett snared just 8% of the GOP vote, as opposed to 14% of the Republican vote today.
This new poll from Democracy Corps indicates two trends which have to be troubling for the Christie campaign: (1) Jon Corzine is starting to consolidate the Democratic vote in the state, and (2) Chris Daggett is starting to appear to be an acceptable alternative to moderate Republicans who otherwise would gravitate towards Christie.
Another survey released today, the first one of the cycle in New Jersey from the always-prolific SurveyUSA, confirms the toss-up, giving a three-point edge to Chris Christie (43-40-14). It is worth noting, as enterprising Kossacks would be sure to do, that there are some sampling elements to this poll that raise eyebrows. Critics on the left, no doubt, would be quick to point out that the sample has only an eleven-point spread on the 2008 Presidential vote preference (Obama actually won by more than 15 points), and that the party ID spread was just 42-38 Dem (in the 2008 exit polls, it was 44-28 Dem).
Whether polls show a three-point lead for Corzine, or for Christie, this marks a decided change in the campaign since the early summer, when Christie was routinely polling with double-digit leads over the Democratic incumbent. Republicans, both in Jersey and in DC, have to be growing increasingly nervous about their prospects in this race.