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NJ Governor--Corzine 45% Forrester 37% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Survey of 500 Likely Voters August 7, 2005
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August 8, 2005--In the race to be New Jersey's next Governor, Democrat Jon Corzine's lead has shrunk to single digits. Senator Corzine now leads Republican Doug Forrester by eight percentage points, 45% to 37%. In July, Corzine held a 12-point lead. Since then, the Garden State Senator's support has dipped five percentage points, from 50% in July to 45% today. Forrester's numbers have held steady--38% last month, 37% now. It's interesting to note that both candidates have slightly less support in this poll than they did the night after they were nominated in a statewide primary. This is the opposite of a normal campaign trend where candidate support increases as undecided voters gradually shift to one camp or the other. Overall, Corzine is viewed favorably by 39% of New Jersey voters and unfavorably by 37%. The numbers for Forrester are 34% favorable and 26% unfavorable. For both men, those figures are a bit more negative than a month ago. It is very unusual for two statewide candidates to have such low favorability ratings. [More Below]
Forty-seven percent (47%) of Likely Voters say that New Jersey politics is more corrupt than in most other states. Six percent (6%) say it is less corrupt while 41% believe the level of corruption is typical of most other states. Still, 34% of voters named property taxes as the most important issue in the campaign. Just 18% named corruption. Forced to make a choice between reducing property taxes and cleaning up corruption, voters were evenly divided. 48% named cleaning up corruption as more important while 44% said reducing property taxes was a higher priority. Additional issues related data is available. The telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports on August 7, 2005. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Forty percent (40%) of survey respondents were Democrats, 30% Republican. President Bush has a 44% Job Approval rating in New Jersey, slightly below his national Approval Ratings. Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information. Rasmussen Reports was the nation's most accurate polling firm during the Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry's vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome. During Election 2004, RasmussenReports.com was also the top-ranked public opinion research site on the web. We had twice as many visitors as our nearest competitor and nearly as many as all competitors combined. Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade. To keep up with our latest releases, be sure to visit the Rasmussen Reports Home Page.
This survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports August 7, 2005. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. |
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