{"id":40802236167,"date":"2010-09-23T12:47:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T16:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2010\/09\/23\/who-do-you-trust\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:22:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:22:06","slug":"who-do-you-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2010\/09\/23\/who-do-you-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Do You Trust?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

Our latest Monmouth University\/Gannett New Jersey Press Media Poll<\/a> asked New Jerseyans how much they trust their leaders to reform state government. Governor Chris Christie has an advantage over other officials on this metric, but not by as much as some might think.<\/p>\n

The governor garners \u201ca lot\u201d of trust from 32% of the public \u2013 including 52% of Republicans, 35% of independents, and 15% of Democrats. However, a similar number \u2013 29% \u2013 say they have no trust at all in him, including 46% of Democrats, 23% of independents, and 13% of his fellow Republicans.<\/p>\n

Both parties in the legislature fare even worse. Only 14% of all New Jerseyans have a lot of trust in the reform credentials of Democratic legislators and an identical 14% feel the same about legislative Republicans. And, legislators of both parties inspire a lot of confidence among just one-third of their fellow partisans \u2013 35% for Democrats and 36% for Republicans. Conversely, legislators get a \u201cno confidence\u201d vote from about 1-in-3 New Jerseyans \u2013 29% for the Democrats and 36% for the Republicans.<\/p>\n

We also threw mayors and town councils into the mix, finding 20% of the public have a lot of trust in the reform efforts of their local officials versus 26% who have none.<\/p>\n

Then we took this a step further and looked at how many people had pretty much no trust in any level of elected official. These cynics number 11% of the adult population. On the other side of spectrum are 4% who have a lot of trust in almost everybody.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that New Jerseyans are somewhat jaded when it comes to politicians\u2019 claims that they will fix the system. And even Chris Christie, who probably has more credibility on this issue than any governor since Brendan Byrne, does not generate automatic support in this area.<\/p>\n

The governor has spent the past few weeks laying out an ambitious reform agenda affecting ethics, pensions, and now income taxes. This is on top of the property tax \u201ctoolkit\u201d measures he announced months ago.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a note of caution in these poll results. The governor does not have carte blanche from the public on his approach to government. His budget cuts, while acknowledged as necessary by many, are spreading financial hardship. The error in the Race to the Top application, and the governor\u2019s subsequent handling of the fallout, has dampened some of the goodwill he gained from the passage of a 2% property tax cap in July.<\/p>\n

Therein lies the crux of the issue. The governor\u2019s job approval rating made a notable uptick after he signed the cap. Garden State voters did not think that this was the be-all end-all of property tax reform, but just the first step in a very long journey to fix the state\u2019s number one problem.<\/p>\n

By any measure, fixing property taxes is the issue by which the public has said it will judge Governor Christie\u2019s success. And New Jerseyans, for the most part, have indicated they will support him as long as it appears that he is working toward that objective.<\/p>\n

The first half of President Obama\u2019s term provides a good object lesson. Sure, he signed landmark health care legislation and kept the banks afloat, but he didn\u2019t do what he was elected to do \u2013 turn the economy around and put people back to work. More importantly, he was perceived as taking his eye off that ball by concentrating on other issues. And now he can\u2019t get anything done with Congress. These perceptions are the main reasons why his approval rating has moved steadily downward.<\/p>\n

Here in New Jersey, Governor Christie has laid out a huge agenda of action items that need legislative approval. The public already thinks the governor and legislature are not able to work together. Putting more bills on the docket, when he hasn\u2019t even gotten a hearing on the toolkit bills he proposed early in the summer, doesn\u2019t appear likely to change that impression. And missteps by the administration on Race to the Top have emboldened the Democratic leadership to oppose him.<\/p>\n

The governor has been using his visibility in the national media and local town hall meetings to get the public on his side. He hopes that public support will provide a bulwark against his legislative opponents \u2013 a strategy that was used effectively by Ronald Reagan. However, Chris Christie may be putting too many irons in the fire. He risks losing the public\u2019s support \u2013 and attention \u2013 if they don\u2019t see a light at the end of the property tax tunnel.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ Our latest Monmouth University\/Gannett New Jersey Press Media Poll asked New Jerseyans how much they trust their leaders to reform state government. Governor Chris Christie has an advantage over other officials on this metric, but not by as much as some might think. The governor garners \u201ca lot\u201d of trust from 32% […]<\/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-40802236167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236167","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=40802236167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802237612,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236167\/revisions\/40802237612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802236167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802236167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802236167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}