Sherrill's Approval Slips to 48 Percent in the FDU Poll, and Trump's Sits at 29 Percent in New Jersey
Fairleigh Dickinson's October survey finds the governor down 10 points since March — with Democratic approval falling from 88 to 71 percent — and the president under 30 percent in the state, days before New Jersey votes in the midterms.
Governor Mikie Sherrill goes into midterm week with a thinner cushion than she had in the spring. A Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll released October 28 and read by this desk puts the governor's approval at 48 percent among New Jersey registered voters, down 10 points from 58 percent in March, with 32 percent disapproving, compared with 34 percent earlier in the year. The softening is sharpest inside her own party: approval among Democrats fell from 88 percent in March to 71 percent in October.
President Donald Trump's numbers in the state are lower. The same poll finds 29 percent of New Jersey voters approving of the president's job performance and 66 percent disapproving — below 30 percent approval in a state he has contested hard in successive cycles. The poll surveyed New Jersey registered voters from October 16 to 22, by telephone interviews and text-to-web surveys, and it is a snapshot of opinion in that window, not a forecast of Tuesday's results.
The timing is the political fact. The findings land less than a week before the November 3 midterm elections, in which New Jersey voters decide a U.S. Senate seat and all 12 of the state's U.S. House seats — races in which both the governor's standing and the president's are the background every candidate is running against. Early voting ends today at 6 p.m.; what the poll measured in October, the electorate answers on Tuesday.
