Ninth District Favors Obama and Christie

A closer look at a recent Stockton/Zogby poll released Friday afternoon shows high favorability ratings for both President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie among voters in the 9th Legislative District, a release issued by the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey said on Monday.

A poll of 400 voters in the new 9th Legislative District, , shows Obama scores a favorability rating of 58 percent, while Christie’s favorability rating is 55 percent.

Voters surveyed in the poll, commissioned by the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton, favored Obama in a potential head-to-head matchup with Christie, 45 percent to 38 percent. The poll has a margin of error of five percent. It was conducted from May 4-7.

 “We also took an early look at the upcoming legislative races,” Executive Director of the William J. Hughes Center Sharon Schulman said. “These numbers are just early benchmarks and we can expect to see a lot of movement in the numbers as the campaigns get in gear late in the summer and into the fall.”

Incumbent Republican Christopher Connors is favored over Democrat Dorothy Ryan in the Senate race. Connors was favored by 39 percent of prospective voters, while 27 percent favored Ryan. Three percent preferred the non-specific “Someone else” option, and 30 percent were unsure.

In the Assembly race, a majority of voters—36 percent—were “not sure,” while 35 percent favored incumbent Republican Brian E. Rumpf and 32 percent favorite the other incumbent Republican Diane C. Gove. Democrat Bradley Billhimer registered 26 percent of the vote, and 24 percent went to Democrat Carla Kearney.

The Republican and Democratic primaries for the 2011 fall elections are June 7. Deadline to register to vote in the primaries is Tuesday.

On Wednesday, May 25, the Galloway GOP will host a meet and greet with Galloway's new District 9 representatives—Connors, Rumpf and Gove—at the Smithville Inn from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

In a poll released by the center last week, Obama had a 65.6 percent favorable or somewhat favorable rating among likely voters polled throughout the state.

Obama is also favored over Christie in a hypothetical statewide matchup. Voters polled chose Obama 51 percent of the time and Christie 33.5 percent of the time.

Overall, voters also disapproved of Christie running for president in 2012, with 68.8 percent of the voters somewhat or strongly disagreeing with a potential Christie presidential campaign.

However, New Jersey voters have a positive opinion of their governor, with 48.8 percent of those polled approving of Christie in general. However, opinion was split when it came to re-electing the governor, with 44.6 percent saying they would re-elect him, and 44.1 percent saying no.

More than 1,000 likely New Jersey voters were polled between May 9 and 11. There is a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percent.

“We explored reasons as to why those with an unfavorable opinion of the Governor felt that way,” Schulman said. “79.2 percent of the respondents did not like the way he treats the NJEA and teachers. This was evenly split among Democrats and Republicans. Other strong reasons were his policies, handling of the state budget and the way he treats unions. These results split among party lines, with Democrats having more unfavorable opinions than Republicans.”

Those polled were concerned with Christie’s confrontational style, although they agreed with his stance on increasing the amount of local and state employees, teachers and firefighters/police contributions to pension and health care. Most disagreed with increasing deductibles and co-pays on senior citizen health programs.

The findings were released the day after a delegation from the . The college submitted a bid to host a presidential or vice presidential debate in 2012. It is one of 12 colleges that to host a debate, and four will be chosen.

Three will host a presidential debate, and one will host a vice presidential debate.

The four colleges that will serve as hosts will be announced in the fall.