TRENTON — With barely more than a month to go before the midterm Congressional elections, New Jersey voters appear to be moving towards Democrats, a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released this morning found. Forty-five percent of registered voters in the Garden State said they would vote for an unnamed Democrat in the Nov. 2 election, while 33 percent said they would vote...
TRENTON — With barely more than a month to go before the midterm Congressional elections, New Jersey voters appear to be moving towards Democrats, a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released this morning found.
Forty-five percent of registered voters in the Garden State said they would vote for an unnamed Democrat in the Nov. 2 election, while 33 percent said they would vote for a Republican and 14 percent said they did not know.
In August, 33 percent of voters picked the Democrat, while 29 percent picked the Republican.
Among likely voters, the unnamed Democratic voter is ahead 47 percent to 36 percent.
“When we test by party, eight of 10 voters support their own party, and there are simply more Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey,” said poll director David Redlawsk.
But when the wording of the question is changed, the results change as well. When asked if they would vote for their current congressman or his challenger – without mentioning either of their names — the two candidates wound up in a statistical dead heat, 32 percent to 31 percent.
“If voters vote by party, incumbents are generally safe. If they enter the voting booth in a ‘throw the bums out’ mood, some races could be closer than expected,” said Redlawsk.
All 13 of New Jersey’s incumbent members of the House of Representatives face reelection in November. Currently, the state is represented by eight Democrats and five Republicans. Most congressmen have districts drawn to make them safe for the party in power, though a few incumbent Democrats face tough reelection battles.
Rutgers-Eagleton surveyed 830 registered voters between Sept. 23 and 26. Questions about generic candidates were asked to random half-samples of voters, producing a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points.
