Well, both PPP and Rasmussen have released brand new NJ-Gov polls, with identical results, both bad for Corzine.
The takeaway is that it appears the Christie/Republican attacks on Daggett are working, and strangely somehow are turning the model into one where Daggett hurts Corzine more than Christie.
PPP released its poll this morning and shows Christie up 42-38, with Daggett at 14. PPP explains that Daggett voters now are saying Corzine, rather than Christie, is their 2nd choice, by a 44-32 margin. That’s a reversal of before. Strangely this doesn’t come from Daggett lcsing ground and Christie gaining; rather, Daggett is actually holding steady in his own support. So the crosstab results could just be statistical noise, with subsamples having very high margins of error.
But Rasmussen suggests there is more than just noise going on. Rasmussen continued its dishonesty in its latest NJ-Gov poll, but this time with a twist: the real topline looks better for Christie than the published one. The real topline with “initial preferences” shows the same result as PPP, at 42-38, with Daggett at 14. Their published topline is Christie up 46-43, with Daggett at 7–actually a narrower Christie lead than the real topline. Rasmussen cooks its numbers as a rule this year, but their close-to-election numbers boomerang back to the norm of other pollsters…they pretty much have no choice to maintain their reputation.
Two polls, two identical results, two both showing a flip in which side is bleeding to Daggett.
PPP explicitly suggests that Christie’s attacks on Daggett are doing the trick. I didn’t think tying Daggett to Corzine would be effective, especially when the attack narrative started so late, barely a month out.
I hope these polls are wrong and it really remains a dead heat. I’m aware of the Suffolk poll from a few days ago showing Corzine up by a big margin, but that poll was flawed and has “outlier” written all over it.
I really hope Corzine can pull this out, because we’ve reached the point where his defeat would look worse than it should have, given the latest expectations that his comeback was near-complete.
Loading ...
While Corzine has been making gains, the Suffolk poll was the only one to show him with a real lead beyond the MoE. At best Corzine has been in a dead heat – I think there was a lot of optimism from Democrats that this would decisively swing Corzine’s way, but at best we can hope for a narrow victory. But, I still take heart from this. If Corzine can force this election into the wee hours after the press goes to bed, than we’ll have essentially created a push where a Christie victory would be robbed of any good headlines for the Republican Party. If we can win the NY-23 at the same time, than the whole night will just look like a wash to the average voter – a GOP gubernatorial pickup in a purple state, a Democratic pickup in a purple Congressional district, and a tossup race where the eventual victor will have only eked out a victory and would have little sway on the national scene. Maybe I’m overthinking this, but that seems to be the scenario we’re headed towards, and as the incumbent party all we need is a draw. If Christie and McDonnell were to both win decisively come Election Day, than we’re going to have some bad headlines and even more nauseating comparisons to 1994 come Wednesday morning, which will be a pain in the ass to deal with.
yeah…not a big fan of Corzine, he’s kind of slimey. All my friends and family will be heading out for Christie.
That Corzine is even in this at all. If the R’s had just nominated someone who knew how to campaign and wasn’t hiding so much this race would be over.
I guess what we take from this is that Christie has managed to stop bleeding his soft support, which is bad news.
You know Rasmussen actually hasn’t being particularly skewed in this race. They had Christie up early and then had his support slumping from August onward. That’s what most of the other polling indicated.
1. Obama rally with Corzine should give a last minute boost (Nov. 1st, IIRC)
2. NJ always gives the Dems a few more points than the polls.
probably explain the discrepancies between these polls. I guess it all comes down to GOTV.
Quinnipiac says Corzine by 5. What’s a guy to think about this race? I’m thinking it’s right down the middle. I suspect both PPP and Rasmussen are using pretty aggressive likely voter models. At the same time, I don’t think Corzine has a significant lead.
This muddled polling reminds me of Franken vs. Coleman. Actually, this whole thing reminds me of Franken vs. Coleman, with the ascendant third party, the nosediving Republican, and the Democrat whose poll numbers are stuck at about 40% for months.
Dem GOTV is critical. Come on Corzine!