Some interesting figures from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling on the governor’s race in New Jersey. PPP shows Republican challenger Christopher Christie leading Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine by a 50%-36% margin, which is pretty much in line with other firms’ top line results; the realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls is a 51%-39% Christie lead.
The first thing I found interesting is that PPP stratifies its results by area code. The area code lines run pretty close to the county lines, so it’s possible to compare the Corzine-Christie numbers with the actual numbers in the 2005 governor race in which Corzine beat Republican Doug Forester by a 53%-43% margin (which I described in my July 26 Examiner column as “narrow,” a characterization which Corzine’s press secretary politely disagreed in an email; fair point).
I’ve put the results in tabular form, showing the percentages for Forester and Corzine in the first two columns for the counties which roughly correspond with the area codes (with counties after each area code), the percentages for John McCain and Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race in the third and fourth columns, and the percentages for Christie and Corzine in the PPP poll in the fifth and sixth columns. Keep in mind that 4% of voters voted for minor party candidates in 2005 and 1% in 2008—much less than the 14% not selecting either candidate in the PPP poll.
Area code 2005 2008 2009
NJ total 43%-53% 42%-57% 50%-36%
201 (Bergen, Hudson) 36%-62% 38%-60% 38%-47%
973 (Essex, Morris, Passaic, Sussex) 41%-56% 39%-60% 49%-38%
908 (Hunterdon, Somerset, Union, Warren) 48%-48% 44%-55% 63%-20%
732 (Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean) 48%-47% 49%-50% 52%-29%
609 (Atlantic, Burlington, Cape May, Mercer) 44%-53% 39%-60% 47%-37%
856 (Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, Salem) 39%-57% 37%-62% 48%-39%
The results turn out to be only moderately interesting. Corzine’s percentage is down from 2005 just about equally in every area code, by between 15% and 18%. Since Corzine is pretty much universally known, this is probably significant. Christie’s percentage exceeds Forester’s by the most (15%) in area code 908 and by the least in area code 201 (2%). That latter may indicate an unwillingness to vote Republican in heavily Hispanic Hudson County, across the Hudson from Manhattan, and by the more mixed inner suburbs of Bergen County.
More interestingly, PPP shows Christie carrying Hispanics 50%-33%, a stunning contrast with the 2008 exit poll, which showed Obama carrying New Jersey Hispanics 78%-21%. PPP shows Corzine carrying blacks 64%-20% (versus Obama’s 92%-8%) and losing among whites 55%-32% (who went for McCain by 50%-49%). This seems somewhat out of line with other New Jersey polls: figures from Rasmussen and Quinnipiac seem to show Corzine leading among Hispanics. The Monmouth University poll shows , shows blacks and Hispanics as 50%-24% Corzine, with 8% for Independent Christopher Daggett (who was listed as a candidate in this poll, unlike the others). That suggests a robust but not plurality showing for Christie among Hispanics.
So the PPP result on Hispanics is an outlier, which we might expect given that they comprise only 9% of the electorate and the margin of error on a small number of voters is quite large. Nevertheless, the overall picture here is that Christie is doing significantly better with Hispanics than John McCain did, and if I were running the national Republican party I would be curious to know why. Here’s one hypothesis. Corzine in New Jersey, like Democrats nationally, have been doing whatever they can to insulate public employees—public employee union members—from the effects of the recession, whatever the cost to the private sector. Latinos tend to be, or to have been, employed in the private sector—particularly in the construction and hospitality industries, which have been especially hard hit by the recession. There’s a widespread assumption that because Latinos tend to have low incomes they have an interest in maintaining public sector spending. That may not be true if they see high spending—and high taxes—as destroying their jobs.
