With four months to go before the Nov. 4 Election, a new poll released Tuesday shows New Jersey's gubernatorial race is close with Democrat Mikie Sherrill holding an 8-point lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli and 16% of voters undecided.
The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that Sherrill has a 45% to 37% edge over Ciattarelli. The poll of likely voters was conducted July 17-23 and had a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percentage points.
The FDU poll results are in stark contrast to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll conducted June 13-16 that showed Sherrill, with a more commanding 20-point lead over Ciattarelli with 13% of voters undecided. That poll had a margin of error of +/- 5.2%.
An experiment embedded in the FDU poll shows that how the race is framed – around local or around national issues – changes who independent voters favor and could be decisive in a close election. The poll found that when questions are framed around local issues, Ciattarelli gains 7 points among independents. But when questions are raised about national issues, he loses 4 points.
“Unless something goes horribly awry, partisans are going to vote for their party’s candidate,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the executive director of the FDU Poll. “While Republicans have been narrowing the gap, there are still more Democrats than Republicans in the state, and Ciattarelli needs to start pulling in more independents and Democrats if he wants to win.”
The poll showed Democrats and Republicans largely lining up behind their candidates. Among Democrats, 87% said they will vote for Sherrill, a former naval officer who has represented New Jersey’s 11th District in Congress since 2019. Among Republicans, 86% said they will vote for Ciattarelli, a businessman and former state assemblyman making his third bid for governor.
Ciattarelli’s support among Republicans is a little softer than Sherrill’s among Democrats, with 23% of Republicans saying that they’ll “probably,” rather than “definitely,” vote for their party’s nominee, versus 15% among Democrats.
To test independents’ support for their chosen candidates, the survey included an experiment designed to measure the impact of framing the race around either national or local issues. Respondents were first asked which candidate they would support in the governor’s race. Then, they were randomly assigned a series of questions either about local issues like energy, flooding and NJ TRANSIT, or a series of questions about national issues, like President Donald Trump and immigration. None of these local or national questions mentioned the governor’s race, or any stances taken by either candidate. Afterward, independent voters were again asked about their preference in the New Jersey governor’s race.
Asking questions about local issues didn’t significantly change candidate preferences among Democrats or Republicans, but it increased support for Ciattarelli among independent voters by 7 percentage points, largely by moving voters who initially weren’t sure about their vote into his camp.
Similarly, asking questions about national issues decreased Ciattarelli’s support among independents by 4 points, with those voters mostly moving into the “not sure” category. However, the national issues condition also tended to crystallize support for Ciattarelli among Republicans, moving 3% of Republicans from “probable” Ciattarelli supporters to “definite” supporters. Neither condition significantly changed support for Sherrill.
“There’s a reason why Ciattarelli is focusing so much on local issues, and trying not to talk about President Trump,” said Cassino. “The more nationalized this race is, the worse Ciattarelli does overall, even as it helps him a bit among Republicans.”
The effects of nationalizing the governor’s race are likely enhanced by the fact that New Jersey voters who approve of Trump aren’t universally in Ciattarelli’s corner, nor are Trump disapprovers fully lining up behind Sherrill.
Fully 81% of New Jersey likely voters who say that they approve of the job Trump is doing say that they’ll support Ciattarelli, but 13% say that they aren’t sure who they’ll vote for, and 4% say that they intend to support Sherrill. There are more New Jersey voters who disapprove of Trump’s performance in office, but Sherrill has the support of just 77% of them, and 5% of Trump disapprovers say that they’ll support Ciattarelli.
“Ciattarelli is walking a fine line with Trump: he needs to consolidate Trump supporters, but do so without making the race too national, or turning off voters who don’t like what’s happening in Washington,” said Cassino. “For Sherrill, on the other hand, there’s no downside to bashing Trump as much as she likes.”
While the two candidates are tied among White voters (43% for Sherrill, 42% for Ciattarelli), Sherrill has a substantial lead among Black voters (58% to 20%). Sherrill also has a lead among Hispanic or Latino/a voters (41% to 27%), but 27% say that they remain undecided. Sherrill has a substantial lead among voters 30 and under (46% to 24%), but the candidates are tied (41% to 40%) among middle-aged voters 45 to 64. Older people are typically the most reliable voters in any election, and the two candidates are close among voters 65 and older, with Sherrill holding a fairly narrow lead of 7 points, 46% to 39%.
