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NJ Governor--Corzine 45% Forrester 38% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Survey of 500 Likely Voters October 4, 2005
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October 6, 2005--The race to be New Jersey's next Governor is getting a bit closer. Democrat Jon Corzine's lead over Republican Doug Forrester has slipped to single digits. The latest Rasmussen Reports election poll finds that Senator Corzine attracting 45% of the Garden State vote while Forester earns 38%. That's the closest the race has been since the day after both men emerged victorious from their party primaries. Three weeks ago, Corzine was ahead by eleven percentage points, 47% to 36%. While Corzine has been ahead by generally comfortable margins throughout the campaign, he has reached the 50% level of support just once. In four other Rasmussen Reports surveys, Corzine has stayed consistently in the 45% to 47% range. Overall, Corzine is viewed favorably by 38% of New Jersey voters. That's down from 41% in the previous survey. The numbers for Forrester are 31% favorable and 27% unfavorable. That's also a bit lower than three weeks ago. It is very unusual for two statewide candidates to have such low favorability ratings. This may explain why there is still a fairly large pool of undecided voters (12%) at this late date in the campaign. [More Below]
In Virginia, both candidates for Governor are well-liked and very few voters remain undecided. Fifty percent (50%) of Likely Voters say that New Jersey politics is more corrupt than in most other states. That's up 49% in September and 47% in August. Five percent (5%) say it is less corrupt while 40% believe the level of corruption is typical of most other states. Men in the state are evenly divided between the candidates while women strongly favor Corzine. Among those with children living at home, the candidates are also evenly divided. Seventy-two percent (72%) of Republicans say they will vote for their party's candidate. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Democrats will vote for their party nominee. Those figures are lower than expected at this point in a campaign, further suggesting a lack of enthusiasm for the candidates. President Bush earns a 43% Approval Rating in the state. That's little changed from September month ago and slightly below his national Approval Ratings. The telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports on October 4, 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. In an early look at 2008, 45% of New Jersey voters plan to vote for a Democratic Presidential candidate. Thirty-six percent (36%) will pull the GOP lever while 19% said it will depend upon the candidates nominated by each party. 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 October 4, 2005. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. |
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