- Just came from a Chamber of Commerce Political action sponsored event. One of the guest speakers was a a pollster from Monmouth U. Spoke about the Exit poll numbers from Tuesday's election.
I voted for Christie. It was interesting to hear what exactly caused the downfall of Corzine on election day.
Very interesting #'s. Here are a few that was highlighted:
1)Working class democrats in towns like Edison, Metuchen,Sayreville & Woodbridge ABANDONED Corzine on election day. From winning these towns in his first run by 2 to 1 landslides, he lost all these towns to Christie. ( Not: Whitman lost these towns when she ran for Governor)
Some dems voted for Christie while a larger number did not even bother to vote.
2) It was the LOWEST voter participation among NJ registered Democrats in this HISTORY of Governorship elections.
3) Republican voters came out with their highest voter turnout in 30 years. GOP counties such as Ocean, Monmouth, & Morris gave Christie historic margins of victory for a Governors race. It was a very energized GOP base.
4) Jews abandoned Corzine in huge numbers. In Corzine's previous run for Senator & Governor, he won NJ's Jewish voters by getting 87% and 91% respectively, of Jewish votes in NJ.
Last Tuesday, Corzine still won Jewish voters but by only 69%. Still a good number but HORRIBLE for any democrat among Jewish voters.
(Note: Obama received 93% of Jewish votes in NJ last year in carryin NJ by a landslide)
5) Hispanic & Asian voters gave him a much less margin of victory than his two previous runs. Although he still won the Hispanic & Asian-American vote, they were the lowest margin in 20 years of any NJ democrat running.
6) Wealthy democratic strongholds such as Millburn/Short Hills & Livingston abandoned Corzine. Christie won both affluent towns. The first Republican statewide candidate to win these towns in almost 3 decades.
7) African-American voters in the core northern urban counties of Hudson, Essex, Bergen, Union, Passaic & Middlesex had a 28% drop in turnout from Corzine last run & a 36% from Obama's run last year
8) Democratic leaning independent support for Corzine dropped by 25% since his last run.
Any good news for these Democrats?
Well as the pollster emphasized to everyone, NJ is normally a solid Blue Democratic state. Considering an all out showing by the republican base & the worse turnout of the democratic base of any Governors race- Christie only won by a Very small margin of 4%. He said, unless the NJ GOP finds new issues to keep the democratic base at home. he expects 2010 & 2012 to be possibly a very strong Democratic year in NJ. He said that with all the anger against Corzine, a strong anti-incumbe nt mood, plus the worse economy in decades, Christie's margin of victory was very small.
He said the key for the GOP is to keep the attack & hope that the economy is still bad. The key for the Democrats is to Nationalize the issues in 2010. Their study shows that if the white house nationalizes core democratic issues like Health care reform, education, etc.- that always brings the base of democrats & independent leaning democrats out in force.
Interesting stuff.