Only a month ago, it looked like New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was on the way out. Now, he’s made a surprising (or maybe not so surprising) comeback in the polls that could mean that he’ll hold on to office:
After trailing by 14 percentage points in August, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine has closed the gap and is now within the margin of error of Republican challenger Chris Christie.
According to a Monmouth University/Gannett poll released Thursday, Christie leads Corzine by 43 percent to 40 percent. Independent Chris Daggett was the preferred candidate of eight percent. The survey size was 527 likely voters and the poll’s margin of error is 3.5 percent.
When the sample size was expanded to 785 registered voters, Corzine and Christie are tied at 40 percent.
Corzine trailed by eight percentage points in the same poll last month, and was down by double digits to Christie throughout the summer. Both campaigns have ratcheted up the negative attacks against each other lately in numerous television ads running across the state.
“New Jersey election followers should not be entirely surprised by this dynamic,” Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in his analysis of the poll. “Democratic voters in New Jersey start paying attention later in the fall, causing the Republican candidate to lose ground.”
And this poll is no fluke:
The biggest problem I see for Christie here is that he’s failed to break above 50 percent in the polls at all. Given that, I think we’re likely to see Corzine re-elected.
