Murphy, a Democrat, is running for a second term in office in a state that hasn’t re-elected a Democrat as governor in decades. He’s running against Ciattarelli, who previously served in the New Jersey General Assembly, and Liberation candidate Princess Blanding.
Over the summer months, Murphy led Ciattarelli by double digits in most polls, with both candidates polling far ahead of Blanding. Polling results in recent weeks have indicated the race may be tightening as Murphy’s lead dipped below 10 points, with one Emerson College poll released last week suggesting his lead had narrowed to 4 or 6 points.
Voter surveys conducted by pollsters with Monmouth University and Stockton University that were released earlier this week found Murphy’s lead among voters to be 9 or 11 points, and a new poll released Friday by Fairleigh Dickinson University similarly found Murphy ahead by 9 points.
The latest Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found Murphy with 53 percent of voter support and Ciattarelli at 44 percent. Both candidates had more than 90 percent of support from voters who were registered members of their respective political parties, and Murphy began gaining ground with independent voters as the survey went on, a press release exploring the poll’s results said. Despite those gains, Ciattarelli had an overall lead of 56 to 39 percent among independents who preferred supporting him over Murphy, the poll found.
Fairleigh Dickinson University pollsters said they conducted the survey among 823 registered New Jersey voters between October 23 and 28. The poll’s margin of error was 3.4 percent and 4.5 percent when the poll’s design effects were taken into account, the release said.
Dan Cassino, the executive director of the poll, said in the release it was “not impossible” for Ciattarelli to make up the 9-point difference between his polling numbers and Murphy’s before Election Day. “But partisans are remaining stable, the independents are moving against Ciattarelli, with many people already having voted, it seems like it is too late to turn things around,” he said.
Despite Murphy’s lead, pollsters said Ciattarelli’s efforts to target Murphy’s policies have been effective among voters, especially on the topic of police reform. But, they added that Ciattarelli may not have enough name recognition among voters for his criticisms of the sitting governor to make a significant impact in the race.
“If voters don’t know who you are, it doesn’t matter how good your attacks are,” Cassino said in the release. “New Jersey is an expensive state to campaign in, and Ciattarelli just hasn’t been able to match Murphy’s visibility.”
New Jersey voters will pick their next governor during the November 2 election, one of only two regularly scheduled gubernatorial elections taking place this fall. Early in-person voting began in New Jersey on October 23 and will last through October 31.
