Talk Elections

A new SUSA poll shows these awful numbers for Christie:

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Chris Christie is doing as Governor?
Approve 38%
Disapprove 56%

Should Governor Chris Christie run for President of the United States in 2012? Not run for President? Or do you not know enough to say?
Should Run 15%
Should Not 73%

Compared to Barack Obama, would Christie be a better President? A worse President? Or would he be about the same?
Better 29%
Worse 53%
About The Same 14%

Compared to George W. Bush, would Christie be a better President? A worse President? Or would he be about the same?
Better 25%
Worse 30%
About The Same 32%

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=5ef5275c-3166-493d-aecb-3d856c8705a5 (http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=5ef5275c-3166-493d-aecb-3d856c8705a5)

OUCH

I guess his bullying schtick grew old pretty fast.

SUSA is a joke so ill wait to see if PPP confirms these numbers.

Yeah, and this wouldn't be the first time a pollster comes out with terrible numbers for Christie only to be completely discredited by everyone else.

Not sure if they're a joke, exactly, but they do have a history of reporting much harsher approval numbers for NJ incumbents, Democrat and Republican alike.

The most recent Quinnipiac (3 weeks ago) showed Christie at 47–46 approvals. I'd be surprised if his numbers really moved so sharply, so fast without a scandal.

SUSA's last poll had him at 33/62 which was way out of line which everyone else was showing. This is actually an improvement from the last SUSA poll.

Doubt it.

Junk poll

Hughes Center has him at 48-45. As I expected, President Obama's ratings have surged here to 66% thanks to the death of Bin Laden.

he was never that popular to begin with.  a bit of a media darling but never got out of the low 50s.

I don't see why this guy is suddenly the darling of the right. He's like the Yankee version of Haley Barbour (substitute rudeness for racism).

he is the public face (and best public communicator) of those on the frontlines in a key battlefield of the class war: the battle to destroy the existing labor union infrastructure, where it is strongest (or, increasingly, the only place it exists at all), the public sector.  obviously the business press will fawn over him, and thus so will the people that internalize the stories thrown at them.

This, also many Republicans don't realize that Christie won largely due to Corzine and would have lost against, say, Codey or Pallone.

I don't think that's accurate.

Codey would have won, but that's a special case because he was a popular former governor. Christie was viewed as an incredibly strong candidate, one that New Jersey Democrats viewed in 2008 to be, by and large, unbeatable. I don't think Pallone would have have won.

Christie might have looked good on paper but he ran a pretty poor campaign. He allowed the election to become a referendum on him, not Corzine.
And even the WSJ accused him of saying nothing of substance about the issues as a candidate.

Christie ran a pretty bad campaign and only barely beat the very unpopular Corzine. Someone who didn't have the baggage of being an unpopular incumbent almost certainly would have beaten him.

Really silly speculation. Codey fell out of favor with the machine so its really moot. Corzine did as the unions commanded.

New Monmouth poll:

Adults: 47-49

RV: 46-49

http://www.monmouth.edu/polling/admin/polls/MUP39_1.pdf

(good job, SUSA)

Another poll out today (FDU):

44% Approve
44% Disapprove

40% Favorable
45% Unfavorable

The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of 804 registered voters statewide was conducted by telephone with both landline and cell phones from May 16 through May 22, 2011, and has a margin of error of +/-3.5 percentage points.

http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/blue

...

SurveyUSA seems to not only have a anti-Obama bias in most of their state surveys, but also a anti-Christie bias ... :P

Even so, this the second or third poll that finds Christie's numbers slipping during the last month. Maybe the locals can enlighten us if anything special happened or it's just Newjerseyans returning to their usual grumpy mode.

Christie has a high floor and a low ceiling like any NJ governor. This is nothing new. Of course, the Democrats are about to take away our property tax relief.

Ever since the property tax cap of last year, there haven't been any accomplishments.

The teachers' union is running ads against Christie.  And his poll numbers have usually been lowest in the spring, for whatever reason.

Not sure how it's "pretty fast" when he has been in office and has been "bullying" since January 2010.  ;)

These aren't terrible numbers when you consider approval ratings in the mid 30s are normal for New Jersey elected officials.

Not surprising. The teachers unions just lost their pension funding for another year.

Well, sure. If you compare him with other Republican stars like Walker, Kasich and Scott, his honeymoon lasted longer.



But, but, but...
I thought he was the BEST governor of New Jersey evah!!!
And the white knight that would save the Republican party in 2012.

He is, in my opinion. I've never said that the voters there agreed. Not sure how his ratings as Governor negate your second "point."

I can see you still don't discuss anything with the opposition in a serious, mature, respectful manner.

Considering the approvals ratings the last two governors of New Jersey suffered, Christie is still in decent shape. Honestly, after decades of mismanagement by Democrats and Republicans alike, the state is borderline ungovernable.

I honestly don't understand (aside from wanting to make cheap partisan points) how someone can say Christie is doing poorly when one considers New Jersey's habit of giving their elected officials terrible ratings almost all of the time. Not to say that this makes Christie super popular or unbeatable but a rating in the high 40s is pretty damn impressive especially considering his outspokenness.

Outspokenness isn't Christie's problem, obnoxiousness is. Brian Schweitzer is outspoken too but he remains very popular in a very Republican state.

It's no coincidence that in a recent poll when they asked New Jersey voters to characterize Christie with one word, the plurality of them chose (surprise!) the word "bully".  

It's a lack of basic understanding of the state. NJ doesn't have a problem with bullies. See the NJEA.

And yet he still remains fairly popular. Oh well for you.

And as Krazen notes, being a bully in New Jersey isn't necessarily seen as a bad thing.

Yep, he's doing just fine and far  better than his predecessors.

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/07/christie-on-decline.html

43% approval.

More importantly, his approvals are actually better than all those mentioned as possible potential rivals: Pallone,  Sweeney, and Corzine.

Not great but not horrible by New Jersey standards though it may make him take a more serious look at 2012...

53% disapproval is good? Before, his approvals were middling, now he's underwater. No amount of spin makes that a good thing.

Who said that was "good?" It isn't horrible by New Jersey standards at all. A friend told me Bob Menendez's approval rating is 38%. I immediately responded that he won't have difficulty getting re-elected with those numbers.

New Jersey's statewide elected officials are known for being disliked and frequently poll in the 30-35% range for approval rating. Get a clue on basics of New Jersey politics before you post about spin.

Menendez's fav/unfav are 37/35. That's hardly comparable with Christie's 43/53.

Take it down a notch. The approval number isn't what I'm talking about, I'm talking about disapproval and 53% is very high. Middling numbers with approval and disapproval both in the 40s are completely different than actually being underwater to the tune of over 50%.

Still better than the ratings of his potential opponents.  ;)

The point remains that these certainly aren't good numbers but not dangerously low by New Jersey standards.

If you are convinced that Cory Booker won't run. But if Christie's numbers continue to sink then Booker might take a page out of Trey Grayson and Reince Priebus's playbooks.

Christie's campaign in 1 PDF. May induce vomiting.

http://www.aimitsolutions.com/njea/WestNewYorkEA/absolutenm/articlefiles/40-NJEA%E2%80%99s%20Legistative%20Successes.pdf

Maybe, but why does Menendez have a much higher "no opinion"? He's been around much longer.

My guess is that he is less controversial than Christie, and generally speaking I would think that people know more about their governors than their Senators. 

Assuming Obama gets reelected, Christie will sail home in 2013 by some razor-thin margin. Booker would be stupid to run - he should head to the Senate and wait until 2020.

Because he doesn't do anything.

Approval rating up to 48%. Disapproval at 42%. His approval is at 50% among registered voters and disapproval is down to 41%.

http://www.monmouth.edu/polling/admin/polls/MUP40_2.pdf (http://www.monmouth.edu/polling/admin/polls/MUP40_2.pdf)

Suburban New Jersey Democrats should be forced to explain why their residents' tax dollars have to cover 40% of Camden's budget.

What is the sum of state support for Camden?

In my experience, people know that NJ's cities have areas of concentrated poverty and it doesn't make sense to abandon the kids there to whatever their inadequate rateables support. People who disagree, vote Republican. People who don't disagree but worry about taxes, are much more fixated on high property taxes, of which zero goes to Camden.

Camden schools are "Abbott District" schools, which means, due to Camden's inability to fund them properly, the state picks up the tab until spending per student is up to the level of the most affluent school districts. As such, Camden spends $3,000 more student than the average NJ public school, all funded by taxpayers elsewhere in the state. There has been, of course, absolutely no connection between above-average school funding and student performance in Abbott Districts, which means -- obviously -- that merely throwing money at the problem won't help. But since that's all the State Supreme Court cares about -- funding -- well ...

Further, the Camden PD and school system were in such neglected shape that they were taken over, management-wise, by the State of New Jersey. That's slated to end in 2012, unless there's an extension.

You could easily make the argument that everyone in NJ pays higher property taxes because Camden is in such terrible shape -- much of it the fault of former mayors, a string of which have gone to prison. It's not a dying town, it's a dead one. Municipal aid for Camden is high, so therefore, municipal aid for other towns is lower because of it. And when there's low municipal aid, of course, there's higher property taxes.

$69 million.

Here a full chart on transitional aid.

http://www.nj.gov/dca/lgs/muniaid/10_aid/cy2010_transitional_aid_to_localities.htm



This actually goes beyond Abbotts and schooling. Now we are paying for their basic daily operations on top of that.

$8.50/person. Higher for more affluent people and families. Got it.

Many of those suburban Democrats are paying five figures in local property taxes by comparison.

Getting this thread back on track:

Monmouth U/NJ Press Media
Approve: 50%
Disapprove: 41%

That's a sharp turnaround from their previous poll in May, which showed Christie underwater.

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/state/christies-job-approval-rating-climbs-to-50-percent-for-first-time

http://www.politickernj.com/50179/monmouth-poll-christie-job-approval-48

That's what I mentioned a few days ago before krazen and brittain went off about Camden.  :P

sorry, I have you on subconscious ignore

Yes, that is certainly true.

In order to win a majority in the legislature, or at least a house in the legislature, the GOP will have to win at least 1 of those suburban Democratic districts.

In 2003 of course the Democrats were able to gain legislative seats despite McGreevey's horrid approvals. Christie's approvals are much higher than that; of course the Democrats have a built in advantage. In my view he will be easily re-elected at approvals like this but it will have some difficulty coattailing down to other Republicans.

http://www.politickernj.com/51601/christie-approval-numbers-highest-level-ever-according-new-poll

The number is even higher among registered voters 55 percent of whom give the governor a favorable rating versus just 37 percent who are unimpressed with the job Christie is doing.


Up, up, and away!

Quinnipiac has a 58-38 approval.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1299.xml?ReleaseID=1660

Good numbers. Will Christie run for President???????!!!!?

Not a word from the haters. Shocking.

haha right? It probably actually has a lot to do with all that President nonsense. We weren't too fond of it here on the homefront, he may have gotten a boost from not running. I'll have to read through the poll to see if there's anything, but I wouldn't be surprised at this point if that had a lot to do with it.

I bet that's why, too.

He is fat.

more like livin' large
what what

(sorry, I'm white)

We can tell you are quite heavy on intellect of course. ::)

Was it Phil that once unironically referred to Christie as "America's Governor"? That sounds more like a Naso-ism, but my reasoning is it would have been applied to Rick Perry or something instead if he was the author.

Sadly, most of the good governors were term-limited or defeated in 2010 as collateral damage against Republicans like Evan Bayh and Blanche Lincoln.

wait till spring and the next episode of school district budget wars

Who cares about next spring? State legislative elections are in three weeks.

We'll see how long it actually holds. Not that it really matters, he still has a terrible attitude for someone who is running a state, he's too angry.

Yeah, I remember hearing this line last year. How did that work out?

56% of New Jersey begs to differ.

Isn't that how most people in New Jersey are lol?

So did Rudy Giuliani. Same general constituency.

Yeah, exactly.

Anger is a sign of sanity and honesty.

That sounds like Bruce Banner's campaign motto.

http://www.politickernj.com/53672/fdu-christie-approval-rating-53

Today's Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll shows 53% of Garden State voters approving of the job Gov. Chris Christie is doing, while 37% disapprove, a net advantage of 16 percentage points and virtually identical to his standing a year ago before his 2011 State of the State address.

Three of five voters (59%) continue to say the state should hold the line on spending rather than raise taxes to support state programs (25%).

“Of course, most candidates for governor or any other office claim they’ll get the budget under control and avoid new taxes,” said Woolley. “Many in the public seem pleasantly surprised that someone stuck to it.”






3 months later, New Jersey still likes the guy.

Love it.

Have you guys seen this yet?

Chris Christie Responds To Female Hecklers With Offensive Oral Sex Joke (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/01/09/chris_christie_responds_to_female_hecklers_with_offensive_oral_sex_joke_video_.html?wpisrc=slatest_redirect).


Classy guy.

Eh, I think we all thought about it in a dirty way at first but I don't think he meant it that way. I think he meant "going down" as in he was going to take her down the way he does with every other clown that decides to heckle him.

Well, there is one way for Christie to use his versatile tongue for good.

"Something" doesn't go down, someone goes down. I don't see how this fits as an oral sex joke. "Sweetheart" is admittedly condescending, though.

()

He's also got a nasty mouth and no respect for women, what a great Governor he is.

Christie might want to consider keeping his jacket on at all times.

Oral sex joke? Seriously, are people that dumb?

Chris is soooo unpopular!

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/new-jersey/release-detail?ReleaseID=1691.

Christie gets a 53 - 39 percent job approval rating

In today's survey, approval is 87 - 9 percent among Republicans and 54 - 37 percent among independent voters while Democrats disapprove 64 - 25 percent. Men approve 60 - 34 percent while women approve 47 - 43 percent.

His overall job approval holds just above 50 percent and 55 percent of New Jerseyans like him personally," Carroll said.

It's been turning for months now.



http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/new-jersey/release-detail?ReleaseID=1711

New Jersey voters approve 55 - 38 percent of the job Christie is doing as governor, compared to his all-time high of 58 - 38 percent October 12. Approval is 62 - 32 percent among men and 49 - 44 percent among women.

Why is this thread titled as such when Christie is clearly one of the most popular governors in the country now?

Because the thread's been going on for a while and there have been several points, including the point at which the thread was created, at which Christie has not been such.

That 38% that disapprove of Christie seems suspiciously close to the percent of New Jersey residents who are on welfare, food stamps, Section 8, are menbers of the teacher's union, or are state employees or in some way depend on the government for their livelihoods.

So that means that Quinnipiac has Christie at his ceiling, effectively? Good to know.

I'll honestly never understand the way those people in New Jersey who do not fall into the categories that you mentioned think. The politics of affluent white-collar suburbia are both alien and inimical to the world that I perceive and live in.

You have accurate (and compatible) statistics for all these things?

Glad to hear it.

The man!

The Abbott districts that steal state funds from the suburbs consist of about 20% of the population.

New Jersey has roughly 3.9 million employed, and 625k employed in the public sector. There's the other 16%.

There's a tad of overlap, and some random haters, but the rest of the state loves the Big Dog.

And of course those are just little people to be disregarded in the relentless march of livin da affluent suburbanite lyfe, ne~?

Seriously, it's not 'stealing state funds from the suburbs' if you actually recognize that both the suburbs and the Abbott districts are part of the whole interlocking web of existences called the State of New Jersey, as both the State of New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for example, are part of the United States of America.

That 55% that approve of Christie seems suspiciously close to the percent of New Jersey residents who have an IQ of below 105.

See? I can make up my own unproven statistics too.

Oh, and ftr, many of those who do approve of Christie presumably support abortion bans and same-sex marriage bans, and hence "depend on the government".

Well, if suburban voters thought so, they would have voted for legislators to implement a program like the Abbott program, and they certainly would not have made Chris Christie Governor of New Jersey.

But no state legislature even in Massachusetts or New Jersey is willing to openly support such a rancid confiscation of wealth to that extreme. Hence of course it was forced upon the public by unaccountable judges.

Abbott proved a very important thing: That flooding poor districts with cash doesn't make for higher test scores. That said, it is absolutely the case that wealthier areas should help support poorer areas of those poorer areas would otherwise be severely underfunded.

IMO, the most objectionable part of Abbott is the use of 1970s era numbers to determine which districts are in need. By including Hoboken into the Abbott mix, a town that really needs the help gets edged out.

That was my point. That suburban voters were in this case motivated by rank small-minded self-interested avarice and bizarre resentment of people worse off than they are.

Massachusetts doesn't feel the need to do court-ordered rigamaroles like the Abbott program because the citizenry of Massachusetts is somewhat more reasonable than that of New Jersey about taxation and what taxes are needed to fund desired programs in general, and there's less outright hatred by people in the affluent suburbs of anywhere that is not an affluent suburb (although that's also because comparatively less of the population lives in affluent suburbs). Then again, we use sales and luxury rather than property taxes for the most part.

Let me guess: You're not a property tax payer. Massachusetts redistributes in a way similar to New Jersey, in a way that generates similar levels of upset. I'm just fortunate that I live in one of those towns that gets state aid -- helps keep my own property taxes in check ($4,000+ per year).

Education dollars spent per student are far lower in Massachusetts of course.

Guessed correctly! Why would I be a property tax payer? I'm a poor and live in a dorm room. I also live in western Massachusetts so forgive me if I have little sympathy for people in the Boston exurbs who feel they're being shortchanged somehow (and apparently don't know particularly much about them or their feelings, partially because they don't seem to be quite as large a segment of the population as in New Jersey. I apologize for not being very aware of this particular segment of the population). I assure you, pretty much everybody who is significantly outside the 495 beltway is upset for almost opposite reasons.

I've been saying for a long time that if anybody wants to understand why Massachusetts distributes the way it does--whether that includes property taxation or not, which is a subject that we've established I'm not immensely familiar with--should just visit Athol or Montague or Palmer.


And the education system is actually somewhat crappier in Massachusetts, as somebody who's been in both.

Not true, they're largely identical.

2009 spending per student in NJ: $13,601
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/02/nj_school_report_card_annual.html

2010 spending per student in MA: $13,055
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/ppx.aspx

Interesting...census bureau data says otherwise. I suspect this might be why for the NJ number. I don't know how they calculate the Massachusetts number.

1) The Comparative Cost Per Pupil represents comparisons with districts of similar budget type. The components that comprise the comparative cost per pupil are as follows: classroom instructional costs; support services (attendance and social work, health services, guidance office, child study team, library and other educational media); administrative costs (general administration, school administration, business administration, and improvement of instruction); operations/maintenance of plant; food services, and extracurricular costs. The total of these expenditures is divided by the average daily enrollment to calculate a total comparative cost per pupil.

(2) Second is the Total Cost Per Pupil which, in addition to all of the costs listed above for the comparative cost, includes costs for tuition expenditures and payments to preschool providers; transportation; other current expenses (lease purchase interest, residential costs, and judgments against schools); equipment; facilities/acquisition; and restricted expenses less nonpublic services and adult schools. The total of these expenditures is divided by the average daily enrollment, combined with all students sent out of the district as reported on the ASSA (annual state aid collection) to calculate a total cost per pupil.



The data I have comes from here and is on table 8.

http://www.census.gov/govs/school/

MAL $14118
NJ: $16271

Coming in at a bargain deal is Utah at less than half these.

http://www.politickernj.com/55490/fdu-poll-christie-job-approval-54

Governor Chris Christie continues to ride high in public approval, putting up his best numbers since March of 2009, just weeks after he took office. According to the most recent statewide survey by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind™, 54% of New Jersey voters approve of the job Christie is doing, while 34% disapprove, and 12% are mixed or not sure. Moreover, half of voters (50%) rate the job he has been doing as “good” or “excellent.”

http://www.politickernj.com/62253/christies-approval-rating-78-percent-according-new-poll

With less than 10 months until voters head to the polls to choose the governor to lead the state for the next four years, Gov. Chris Christie has a 78 percent approval rating, according to a new poll.

Dominating

He will win re-election (and I support him in that endeavor), but can he get through your crazy party's primary in 2016?

Holy hell, Christie could win all 21 counties at this point.

Troubling for the GOP, though: Christie isn't popular because Republicans are popular. Christie is popular for telling national Republicans to go f- themselves -- for being the first person with power to have the sense to say to his own party, "holy hell, what the f- is wrong with you?"

Both New Jersey Democrats and New Jersey Republicans are cheering that way too loudly. Support for Christie is deep, but I would not want to be a GOP congressman or state house member up for re-election in 2013/4. Democrats and Independents are going to want to take their revenge out on someone, politically, and Republicans are just going to be all too OK with letting them do that.

Christie's approval rating is at 74% in the latest Quinnipiac poll.

Mark Zuckerberg is even getting in on the act. He will be throwing a fundraiser for Christie.

I would've thought Mark Zuckerberg would be a raging liberal.  Guess I was wrong.

What has he done that suggests rage? He strikes me as a clam, cool person. Obviously, as a techie he has a liberal orientation. It shouldn't be a surprise to see him supporting someone he's worked with on policy. He worked with Christie on some education reform ideas.

Just breaking: Codey will not run against Christie for Governor.

Just Buono? Man this will be a cake walk for Christie. (Yes, I am aware of what I just said)

LoL.

Pascrell might run, some inner circles have noted, but he also might be irrelevant. How does he stand against Christie, if there are any polls including Pascrell?

I have a map in progress showing the ability of state governors to get good results for themselves. This looks like an outlier, and it is hard to see how Christie could suddenly become as unpopular as Scott, Kasich, Walker, or Snyder.

That poll is a year-and-a-half old, champ.

Should have caught that. It would never appear on my map because mine shows only post-election polls (mid-November 2012 onward). Christie gained support because he stood up to Republican politicians. That remains the reality. 

Christie gained support because he was an able administrator during and after Hurricane Sandy. Standard rally effect. Standing up to national Republicans probably helped him hold on to and solidify that popularity, though.

He deserves recognition for putting service to the electorate above Party.


I am going on margins here. Democrats ahead will of course be shown in red and Republicans ahead will be shown in blue. Saturation of color will so look:

tie white
1-3%       20% saturation
4-7%       40% saturation
8%-20%  60% saturation
over 20% 80% saturation

The lowest level of saturation  (20%) now applies for any incumbent Governor whose approval is under 8% but whose approval rating is under 50%. The second-lowest level of saturation (40%) now applies to any Governor whose approval rating is under 50% but whose margin of difference is 8% or higher. No change applies to any Governor whose approval is lower than disapproval.

Behind, yellow the colors to green for Republicans  and orange for Democrats. Dark shades of orange are really brown.  Ties are white.

Governors who die, resign, are defeated in bids for re-election, retire at the end of their terms, or are impeached and removed from office will be whited out. Independent governor or no governor -- white.

Here is my map of current margins of approval for governors based only upon results from after the November 2012 election. As you can see from this map Chris Christie is in no danger of defeat in the next election.  Red shades indicate an incumbent Democrat in good shape, blue shades show an incumbent Republican in good shape. Deep red or blue shades indicate a very strong position in polling (as for Cuomo in New York or Christie in New Jersey). Orange shows the inverse of a Democrat being successful (Quinn is in trouble in Illinois) and green shows the inverse of a successful Republican Governor (Scott is wildly unpopular in Florida) .  


()

12. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Christopher Christie is handling his job as Governor?

Tot    Rep    Dem      Ind    Men    Wom    Wht        Blk           Hsp   Approve              74%    93%    56%    78%    79%    69%    78%     56%    65% Disapprove           21      4         37       18       18        24       18        33       26 DK/NA                     5      3           7        4          3         7          4        10         9                        COLLEGE DEG   ANNUAL HSHOLD INC    AGE IN YRS..............                      Yes    No     <50K   50-100 >100K  18-29  30-44  45-64  65+   Approve              70%    76%    68%    80%    75%    57%    76%    76%    79% Disapprove           25     18         26       16         22     40       20       20       13 DK/NA                      4      6           6         4           3       3         4         5         8                                                              Philly                Union                        Urban  SbUrbn ExUrbn   land   Shore    HsHld   Approve                62%    76%    82%    68%    79%    66% Disapprove           28        21        15       27        14       29 DK/NA                     9          3          4         5          7         5

Few politicians these days can win every imaginable group within a state.  I don't know whether this will quite hold.

It's by a good pollster (Quinnipiac) and it is from Wednesday.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-centers/polling-institute/new-jersey/release-detail/?ReleaseID=1833
 

New Rutgers-Eagleton poll has Christie's approval rating at 73%.

Why do young people oppose him so much?

Maybe because he's fat? Young people are probably more image-conscious than their elders. I'm just brainstorming, not really sure...small sample size?

Young people tend, in my experience, to be much more partisan (in both directions) than middle-aged people.

Yeah, come on, young people in NJ will be almost all Democrats, and quite strongly so.

So they're not thinking? That's awfully cynical, even by my standards. They have to have a reason.

The youth are overwhelmingly in support of gay marriage and view it as the civil liberties struggle of our generation. Christie's opposition is not well received.

There are definitely good reasons not to like Christie. Gay marriage is a big one.

I would be surprised if young people in Jersey are aware of Christie's gay marriage stance.

Christie calls out people that BS. Is it really any wonder why so many young people dislike him?

Brilliant political analysis, Phil.

Have this forum learned anything about crosstabs?

Wow, and you used to call ME an old man. You're prematurely curmudgeonish, Phil. ;)

I'll just leave before you yell at me to get off your lawn.

Young people are quite aware that there's one party that opposes gay rights. Christie is a Republican, so it's safe to assume he opposes gay marriage.

Has no one said the perhaps obvious reasons? One being small sample size, the other being young people are less white.

http://blogs.app.com/capitolquickies/2013/02/12/spokesman-buono-not-wearing-seatbelt-during-accident/

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono was not wearing a seatbelt when the car she was a passenger in was involved in an accident Monday night.

Buono’s campaign staff, in an emailed statement this morning, said the state senator suffered a small cut to her forehead and was taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure.

“There she was treated and released shortly thereafter,” said campaign spokesman David Turner in the email. “She is back at work this morning.”

She was riding in the back seat of the car and was not wearing a seatbelt, Turner said.




Didn't learn from Corzine I suppose.

As a young NJ resident I'd say that most people my age are not particularly informed when it comes to politics (no surprise there) and have trouble separating Chris Christie (R) from the Republican Party in general. They aren't really aware that that are notable differences between, say, Christie and Kelly Ayotte. The term moderate doesn't mean much to them; it's the R and the D that really matters. And they see the Republican Party as Bad, for a few reasons, but overwhelmingly imo because (1) the Reps generally oppose gay marriage, which has unfortunately become for many THE sole issue on which many of my generation judge candidates (and for that matter the only one they know anything about), and (2) because the Reps are often overtly religious, which doesn't play well to a demographic that is largely secular, doesn't really take religion seriously, and often treats it as something distasteful/an object of derision. There's also just the general, thoughtless liberalism that comes with being a college student/recent college graduate and getting most of your news from the Daily Show, Colbert, Slate, Salon, Gawker, etc.

To the comments above, I'd say that yes, gay marriage is a big aspect of the disapproval, but not because young people necessarily are aware of Christie's position on the issue (most of my friends aren't even aware of his veto), but just because he is a Republican, which to their mind means automatically anti gay marriage.

The irony is that many young people who have a kneejerk disapproval of Christie would support him if they actually were aware of his policies, stand on issues, etc. (and, maybe as or more important, the stance of the Jersey Democrats on the same issues).

Yeah this is pretty much what I thought. Excellent post. The liberal media bubble and non-critical group think attitude certainly plays a major role.

Someone please change the title of this thread. It's getting ridiculous.

I rather like it.

It's "ironic".

Wow. Buono isn't even collecting the 36%

No. Don't ever change the title of this thread. Let them see what they did.

Leaving the RGGI and canceling the ARC tunnel = short-sighted decisions that screw future generations HARD.

How many young New Jerseyans do you think are actually aware of these decisions or their consequences?

I'm well aware that my reasons and views are not necessarily typical.

FWIW I do consider vetoing the gay marriage bill the third-worst thing Christie has done, and of course your average young person knows and cares about that much more.

Christie is also brutally anti-teachers' union, and the youngest in New Jersey tend to be those with the closest ties to the teaching community. You know, on account of many of them still being students or otherwise being fresh out of school.

Just curious, what were the top 2? Those two issues you previously mentioned above? I admit I don't even know what those are about.

The pattern is heavily so nationwide -- in general the youngest voters rarely believe that the Republican Party has much to offer them while it demands much of them. 

RGGI- Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an interstate compact among a number of states in the Northeast to establish a pilot cap-and-trade system to cut emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming gases.

ARC- Access to the Region's Core, basically another set of rail tunnels under the Hudson, sorely needed since there's only one pair of tracks under there right now, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad about a century ago and currently at full capacity.  It's a huge transportation bottleneck.  The planning process was complete, and the federal gov't was going to foot the vast majority of the bill, and the state (and region) desperately needs further capacity... but no.

Yeah, those were the two biggest issues for me. 

NJ does more "back turning" to Christie - http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/02/20/christie_soars_in_new_jersey.html (http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/02/20/christie_soars_in_new_jersey.html)


74% approval (56% among Dems) and a 37% lead against Buono.

Christie smashing Buono in latest poll, closing in on 60% to Buono's 22%. Christie's approval is down...to 73%. He has a 56% approval rating among non-whites.

David Stahl, the mayor of East Brunswick (a suburban Democratic town of 46,000 in the suburban-and-urban Democratic county of Middlesex) has switched parties from Democrat to Republican (http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20130312/NJNEWS/303120028/Switching-red-blue-East-Brunswick-s-Stahl-announces-run-state-senate). Stahl will seek election to the heavily Democratic 18th Senate district, currently held by gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono.

In 2009, Christie carried Middlesex county in something of an upset, though arguably, given trends elsewhere in the state, you could say a statewide Republican now needs blue collar Middlesex to win. Republican candidates did surprisingly well here in 2009: Assemblyman Diegnan (D) won by a relatively narrow 26,317 to 24,091 margin against nobody Joe Sinagra (R). It's the most Republican of the Middlesex Senate districts (read: most suburban), and is theoretically winnable in a Christie-dominated GOP wave election.

It wasn't close in 2007 or 2011, but it is worth noting that Republicans picked up this seat in the 1991 anti-Florio superwave, with the incumbent winning upset re-election campaigns in 1993 and 1997.

1991 was the last time prior to 2009 that a Republican won Middlesex County. As it stands Christie won the 18th district by a reasonable margin; outside of 1 and 3 it was one of this best Dem held districts.

I don't know who Joe Sinagra was, but it couldn't have hurt to have the same last name as the last R senator from this district, who was never defeated and was appointed to head the Port Authority, and who was mayor of East Brunswick before that.

If Christie does win huge, it won't be because voters like him as a Republican, it will be because he goes out of his way to not be like other Republicans.  This would mean that he would have pretty limited coat tails.