Patrick Murray of the Monmouth University Polling Institute offers an interesting overview, county by county, of how today’s results may play out — and it appears that Central Jersey is in the driver’s seat.
Another area worth watching is the Route 1 corridor counties (Mercer, Middlesex, Union), especially Middlesex. Corzine won Middlesex by 32,000 votes in 2005. Florio only won it by 1,300 votes in 1993. Voters in this region tend to be independent minded but vote Democratic in most elections. Polling indicates that Corzine is performing nowhere near as well in this region as he did four years ago. [In the past month, both Joe Biden and Bill Clinton have held rallies in Middlesex County.] While all regions of the state have their part to play in this race, this is the one I’m keeping my eye on to tell which way the wind is blowing.
These are Democratic Counties. But, as Murray points out, the gubernatorial race has a different dynamic, due I think to the more diverse mix here — racially, to be sure, but it also is a hodge-podge of rural, urban and suburban towns and poor, working class and rich communities.
If the turnout is large and the Democrats can convince the people not to jump ship as they move up the ballot, Chris Christie may have problems closing the deal.
On a side note, the national coverage of this race seems to have forgotten that it was just a few months ago that Christie was up by more than 20 in some polls and that Corzine was dead in the water. Shouldn’t that factor into the national media’s reading of the results?
Hank Kalet 