{"id":40802236017,"date":"2012-06-19T16:07:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T20:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2012\/06\/19\/new-jersey-elections-the-view-from-june\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:22:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:22:05","slug":"new-jersey-elections-the-view-from-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2012\/06\/19\/new-jersey-elections-the-view-from-june\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey Elections: The View from June"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at\u00a0PolitickerNJ<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

If June\u2019s Garden State polls are any indication, 2012 is shaping up a lot like 1996 \u2013 at least as far as the Presidential contest is concerned.\u00a0 And maybe the U.S. Senate race, too… maybe.<\/p>\n

The latest Eagleton-Rutgers Poll gives President Barack Obama a 55% favorable to 33% unfavorable rating from Garden State voters.\u00a0 Sixteen years ago, then-incumbent Bill Clinton held a nearly identical 53% to 35% June rating in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

The 1996 poll also gave Clinton a 46% \u201cexcellent+good\u201d to 52% \u201cfair+poor\u201d rating.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have a comparable job rating question this time around.\u00a0 Nowadays, polls tend to ask a straight \u201capprove\/disapprove\u201d question.\u00a0 However, Eagleton did ask New Jersey voters whether Bill Clinton deserved to be re-elected \u2013 to which 51% said yes.\u00a0 A Quinnipiac Poll last month put Obama\u2019s re-elect number at a nearly identical 52%.<\/p>\n

What does this mean? Anything can happen, but given that incumbent elections tend to be referenda on their first terms, Obama is doing as well as Clinton on these underlying benchmark measures.<\/p>\n

The 1996 also asked about vote intention.\u00a0 I am wary of making a direct comparison to current polls because that question was the 17th<\/sup> asked, after a series of questions about familiarity with the candidates.\u00a0 Current polls tend to ask the vote preference question much sooner in the interview \u2013 which has a differential impact on the results.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, though, the 1996 Eagleton Poll showed Clinton leading Bob Dole by 19 points (53% to 34%).\u00a0 He won the state by a nearly identical 18 points that November.\u00a0 Recent New Jersey polls have Obama over Mitt Romney by anywhere from 10 points (Quinnipiac, May 16<\/a>) to 14 points (Eagleton, June 16<\/a>).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another interesting factor shared by these two elections \u2013 a U.S. Senate seat is also at stake.\u00a0 The June 1996 Eagleton Poll showed Democrat Bob Torricelli leading Republican Dick Zimmer by 8 points (39% to 31%) in that contest \u2013 about half the incumbent President\u2019s poll margin.\u00a0 Torricelli eventually won that race by 10 points \u2013 again, about half the incumbent President\u2019s winning margin.<\/p>\n

Recent polls on this year\u2019s New Jersey Senate race put the gap at about the same as the Presidential contest.\u00a0 A Quinnipiac Poll released last month had incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez leading GOP challenger Joe Kyrillos by 10 points \u2013 the same as their Obama-Romney margin.<\/p>\n

Of course, GOP boosters point to the 2000 anomaly, where Al Gore bested George W. Bush by 16 points in the Garden State, but had no coattails.\u00a0 Jon Corzine squeaked past Bob Franks by 3 points, despite spending an astronomical $60 million on the effort.<\/p>\n

In June 2000, both Eagleton and Quinnipiac gave Gore a narrow 4 point polling edge in New Jersey, while Corzine held a much wider lead \u2013 10 points in the Eagleton poll and 20 points according to Quinnipiac.\u00a0 Obviously, these trends flipped by Election Day.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, 2012 may be more like 1996 than 2000 since the top-of-ticket coattails belong to an incumbent President.\u00a0 There is also a difference between 2012 and 1996 that shouldn\u2019t be overlooked.\u00a0 The current race involves an incumbent Senator while the 1996 contest was for an open seat.<\/p>\n

Sixteen years ago, only 1-in-5 voters had formed an opinion of either Senate nominee by this point in the race.\u00a0 In the current cycle, that 1-in-5 number holds true for Kyrillos \u2013 12% favorable to 8% unfavorable according to Eagleton.\u00a0 As may be expected, voters are much more familiar with the sitting incumbent, giving Menendez a 33% positive to 20% negative rating in the same poll.\u00a0 It is worth noting, though, that this six year officeholder is still largely unknown to 4 out of 10 of his constituents.<\/p>\n

One factor that could make this race interesting is that the low level of familiarity means that only 26% of voters in an April Monmouth University Poll <\/a>would definitively state that Menendez deserves to be re-elected.\u00a0 Another 32% said he did not and 41% couldn\u2019t make a determination either way.<\/p>\n

That leaves a lot to ponder.\u00a0 If these presidential ratings track as they did in 1996, does Obama win by 10 points in November?\u00a0 And if so, does Menendez hold on to his current lead as well?\u00a0 Or does the other 1996 dynamic emerge, with Menendez claiming only half the margin that the President gets \u2013 thus making it a close race with Kyrillos?<\/p>\n

Or does Obama\u2019s vote share start to climb and Menendez\u2019s start to drop over the next few months, a la 2000?<\/p>\n

These are just a few potential scenarios based on past performance. \u00a0Something to ponder this summer while you are down the shore enjoying a Windmill hot dog or Kohr\u2019s custard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at\u00a0PolitickerNJ If June\u2019s Garden State polls are any indication, 2012 is shaping up a lot like 1996 \u2013 at least as far as the Presidential contest is concerned.\u00a0 And maybe the U.S. Senate race, too… maybe. The latest Eagleton-Rutgers Poll gives President Barack Obama a 55% favorable to 33% unfavorable rating from Garden State […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":939,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802236017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802236017"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802246367,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236017\/revisions\/40802246367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802236017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802236017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802236017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}