Corzine Still In Trouble; Lonegan Gaining Ground
A couple of new polls are out from Quinnipiac and Strategic Vision.
The Quinnipiac poll confirms that Governor Corzine remains in deep trouble in his bid for re-election. His approve/dispprove is the wors they’ve ever recorded: 37% approve; 54% disapprove. 50% feel the state is worse off since he became Governor and a majority of voters feel he doesn’t deserve re-election (55%-33%). To me this is devastating for Corzine. If most people want you out it will be tough to overcome.
In head-to-head matchups, Chris Christie still leads Corzine by a healthy margin, 45%-38%, while Steve Lonegan is tied with Corzine at 41%.
In the GOP primary, Christie still leads Lonegan but the gap has decreased significantly. In the last Quinnipiac poll, Lonegan trailed Christie 41%-19%. Now, Quinnipiac has Christie and Lonegan separated by just a margin of 46%-37%.
The Strategic Vision poll shows Christie leading Corzine 47%-36% and Lonegan trailing Corzine 44%-39%. Christie leads Lonegan 40%-15% in the Strategic Vision poll – a considerably different result from the Quinnipiac poll. Suffice it to say this makes me a little skeptical of the Strategic Vision results, particularly as the Lonegan campaign indicated recently that their own polling was more in line with the Quinnipiac results.
As a Lonegan supporter, these numbers are a positive sign. The biggest obstacle the campaign has been facing is name recognition and Mayor Lonegan appears to be gaining in that area.
With the debates coming up next month, there is plenty of time for the GOP primary to further tighten. For Mayor Lonegan to win, he will need to continue to build name recognition in these closing weeks and the campaign should continue to stick to its positive pro-taxpayer message. Steve’s message is one that will resonate with voters in this state who are overtaxed and have had enough.
I believe the campaign can and should draw distinctions with the more moderate Christie on the issues, but need not continue to harp on questions about Christie’s ethics. These issues will play themselves out and voters will make up their own minds about Christie’s character. The important thing is for Mayor Lonegan to prove to voters that he is the candidate with better solutions and that he has the fortitude to fight for the ideas he believes in.
Cross-posted at Red County.
