The FDU Poll released Wednesday showed each gubernatorial candidate has strong support among their party faithful — a key reason why Democrat Mikie Sherrill has an 8-point lead over Republican Jack Ciattarelli.
But it took a deeper dive into the minds of independent voters — and the 16% (one in six) who said they are undecided.
The key takeaway: How the race was framed seemingly impacted their view.
Dan Cassino, a professor of government and politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the executive director of the FDU Poll, said an experiment embedded in the poll shows the extent to which how the race is framed — around local or around national issues — changes who independent voters favor and could be decisive in a close election.
Here’s it worked, Cassino explained.
Respondents were first asked which candidate they would support in the governor’s race. Then, they were randomly assigned to get a series of questions either about local issues like energy, flooding and NJ Transit, or a series of questions about national issues, like President Trump and immigration. Afterward, they were again asked about their preference in the governor’s race. None of these questions mentioned the governor’s race, or any stances taken by either candidate.
Of course, most voters – especially devoted partisans – aren’t going to change their minds about vote preference after a few minutes of questions, but some do, and the differences reveal the likely effects of framing the election around local or national issues, Cassino said.
Asking questions about local issues didn’t significantly change 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 percent of Republicans from “probable” Ciattarelli supporters to “definite” supporters. Neither condition significantly changed support for Sherrill.
Note that these are changes in the second time the governor’s race question was asked, so the overall results reported do not include these effects.
“There’s a reason why Ciattarelli is focusing so much on local issues, and trying not to talk about President Trump,” Cassino said. “The more nationalized this race is, the worse Ciattarelli does overall, even as it helps him a bit among Republicans.”
Methodology
Cassino said the FDU Poll is a member of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative and is devoted to ensuring that our results are presented in such a way that anyone can quickly and easily get all of the information that they may need to evaluate the validity of our surveys. We believe that transparency is the key to building trust in the work of high-quality public opinion research and necessary to pushing our industry forward, he said.
The survey was conducted between July 17-23, using a voter list of registered voters in New Jersey carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Contact attempts were limited to registered voters who had voted in one or both of the last two N.J. gubernatorial elections or were newly registered since the last N.J. gubernatorial election. These respondents were considered likely voters if they met these criteria and said that they intended to vote in November’s gubernatorial election.
Respondents were contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 806 registered voters in the state. Surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews to landlines (282) and cellphones (82) and the remainder (442) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.
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 percent of New Jersey likely voters who say that they approve of the job Trump is doing say that they’ll support Ciattarelli, but 13 percent say that they aren’t sure who they’ll vote for, and four percent 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 percent of them, and five percent of Trump disapprovers say that they’ll support Ciattarelli.
This is Ciattarelli’s challenge, Cassino said.
“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,” he said. “For Sherrill, on the other hand, there’s no downside to bashing Trump as much as she likes.”
Though the general election is still a few months off, both Democrats and Republicans have largely lined up behind their candidates: 87 percent of Democrats say that they’ll vote for Sherrill, and 86 percent of Republicans for Ciattarelli.
Ciattarelli’s support among Republicans is a little softer than Sherrill’s among Democrats, with 23 percent of Republicans saying that they’ll “probably,” rather than “definitely” vote for their party’s nominee, versus 15 percent among Democrats.
“Unless something goes horribly awry, partisans are going to vote for their party’s candidate,” Cassino said. “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.”
