by Morgan Leason, New Jersey Monitor
As voters prepare to decide who the state’s next governor should be, nearly half of respondents to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll say the state is headed in the wrong direction.
The poll found that 48% of residents say New Jersey is on the wrong track compared to 39% who say it is headed in the right direction. Fourteen percent are unsure.
Results differed widely depending on the respondent’s political party.
Sixty-three percent of Democrats said the state is headed in the right direction, versus 77% of Republicans saying it’s on the wrong track.
Unaffiliated voters are on the pessimistic side, with 48% saying the state is on the wrong track and 32% saying it’s moving in the right direction.
Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, is stepping down in January after two terms as governor. Republican former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, are competing in November to succeed him.
Ashley Koning, assistant research professor and director of Rutgers’ Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, said the right track/wrong track gap is the widest it’s been since March 2022.
A poll from that month found 48% of New Jerseyans saying the state was going in the right direction and 45% saying it had gone off track.
“We’ve kind of seen this very middle-of-the-road kind of malaise of an outlook from New Jerseyans for quite a prolonged period of time now, really dipping down since the pandemic,” Koning told the New Jersey Monitor.
Predictably, economic issues topped respondents’ concerns when asked about the most important problem facing New Jersey. Thirty-six percent cited taxes and 22% said affordability and the cost of living, while housing affordability and the economy were cited by 8% each.
The last time New Jersey voters had a governor’s race with no incumbent seeking reelection was 2017, when Murphy was running to succeed Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican wrapping up two terms as governor.
A Rutgers-Eagleton poll from August 2017 revealed deep dissatisfaction among New Jersey voters, with 74% saying the state was on the wrong track versus 16% who said it was going in the right direction.
Though Sherrill’s campaign has criticized Ciattarelli for being too friendly to President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, and Ciattarelli has griped about overdevelopment of the state’s suburbs, economic issues widely eclipsed both as the most important problem facing New Jersey, the new poll shows. Trump, the federal government, and MAGA ideology were cited by just 3%, with 1% citing overdevelopment.
“Even when we see these critical social issues pop up and become more salient, they’re still, at the end of the day, perhaps not the most important or the biggest driving factor,” Koning said. “That’s how Ciattarelli ended up closing his gap in 2021 as well, by focusing on economic issues, and why the gubernatorial was so close.”
Ciattarelli ran for governor in 2021 and came within three points of unseating Murphy.
Results are from a statewide poll of 621 adults selected randomly and surveyed between June 13 and June 16.