Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by just four percentage points in New Jersey, 38 percent-34 percent, a new poll from Monmouth University found.
The poll showed Clinton’s advantage slightly exceeded the poll’s 3.7-percentage-point margin of error, meaning the race in the Garden State is nearly as close as can be.
“Blue Jersey doesn’t appear quite so blue at this stage of the campaign, but we should keep in mind that neither major party candidate has fully locked in the support of their partisan bases,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in a statement. “When and if that happens, the benefit should accrue more to Clinton than to Trump simply because Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state.”
Trump’s upstart polling is bolstered by white voters, with whom Trump has a 15-percentage-point advantage on Clinton, 44-29. Clinton, meanwhile, has a 40-point lead on Trump with non-white New Jerseyans, 54-14. Clinton is also winning big among millennials, as voters under age 35 support her by 14 percentage points, 41-27.
Approximately 15 percent of New Jerseyans surveyed preferred someone other than Trump and Clinton. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson garnered 5 percent, Green Party candidate Jill Stein grabbed 4 percent and 6 percent of respondents said they would vote for some other candidate.
If Trump were to pick New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as his running mate, more Garden State voters would flock to Clinton or some other candidate. Approximately 42 percent of New Jerseyans said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if Christie was his vice presidential pick. More than half of undecided voters, 51 percent, view a Christie candidacy as a turn-off.
The Monmouth University poll surveyed 806 adults, including 703 registered voters, by telephone from May 23-27.
