Bush gains in Garden State

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Tabular Results
Survey Details
Republican Response
Democratic Response

The race for New Jersey’s 15 electoral votes remains closer than expected, according to the most recent results from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s New Jersey tracking poll.  Kerry leads among decided voters by 44%-42%, but when leaners are included the race evens out at 46%-46% with 6% undecided and 2% for third party candidates.

“The President still has an uphill struggle in this Democratic-leaning state,” said Larson, professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University and survey analyst for PublicMind.  “He has to struggle against a majority who think the country is on the wrong track, a majority who think the war in Iraq was a mistake, and a majority who give him low ratings for both the economy and foreign policy.”

A majority (54%) of New Jersey’s likely voters continue to say the country “has gotten off on the wrong track” while only about a third (36%) say it’s headed in the right direction.  A majority (53%) rate the President’s overall performance as President as “only fair” or “poor” against 44% who rate him as “good” or “excellent.” Likewise, a majority (53%) rate his handling of foreign policy as only fair or poor while 44% say good or excellent.  A similar majority (54%) say the military effort in Iraq is going “not too well” or “not well at all.” And a majority (53%) continue to say that the U.S. action against Iraq was “a mistake.”  

Nonetheless, “national security and the war on terror” outpaces every other issue as “most important” and on that issue Bush outpaces Kerry as the better candidate by 67%-26%. “It may be that voters’ concerns with terrorism are causing them to cut the President some slack on other issues,” added Larson.

The PublicMind tracking poll of 508 likely voters was conducted from Oct. 8 through Oct. 14 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points.

Poll Analysis

Contacts:

Bruce Larson 973.769.1401

Peter Woolley 973.670.3239

Radio actuality line: (201) 692-2846.

For more information, please call (201) 692-7032.