PublicMind Polls Nail Election Results

Fairleigh Dickinson University and its partner, TMR, Inc., conducted the first poll of New Jersey’s 2001 campaign season in late April. That poll found that in a hypothetical race between Democrat Jim McGreevey and Republican Bret Schundler — a race that assumed each one would win his party’s nomination — McGreevey would coast to victory with a 17-point margin. Two subsequent polls put the McGreevey lead at 17 percent and then 18 percent.

In November, the PublicMind also conducted the last poll of New Jersey’s 2001 political season, winding up its interviews late Sunday night before the Tuesday election. The poll found a 16-point lead for McGreevey. But it also found a slight trend for Schundler, as well as an increasing disinterest in the race on the part of independents which might have depressed turnout. As the PublicMind suggested, McGreevey subsequently coasted to a win in a light turnout with 56.2 percent against Schundler’s 41.9 percent.

The PublicMind was consistently among the most accurate polls. Bruce Larson, social science/history, F-M, and chief survey analyst for the PublicMind, said, “Public opinion is inherently difficult to measure, but our methods proved reliable.”

Peter Woolley, political science and chair, social science/history, F-M, who coordinates the PublicMind’s faculty and consultants, said, “This is an immensely talented group of people. I’m looking forward to their next projects — some political, some cultural and some national.”

 Faculty interested in working with PublicMind to gather data can contact Woolley at woolley@fdu.edu.

 The election was not the only item on the PublicMind radar. Among the other PublicMind findings revealed this year:

• President George Bush received high marks from all demographic and political subgroups in New Jersey, even those who have traditionally been more critical. By contrast, other prominent political figures, including former governor and now head of the Environmental Protection Agency Christine Todd Whitman and U.S. senators Robert Torricelli and Jon Corzine received mixed grades from New Jersey voters. 

• A majority of New Jersey residents say it is a “better” place to live than other states, and only 13 percent think it is a “worse” place to live. Large majorities also believe the state’s schools are the “same or better” than those in other states, that its politicians are no more “dishonest” than others and that crime occurs at the same or lesser rates than elsewhere. On the other hand, 75 percent of New Jerseyans think they pay more taxes than people in other states, and half think New Jersey has more pollution problems than other states.
On the national scene, many Americans either don’t know much about New Jersey or see it as similar to their own states in many respects. Perhaps most interestingly, despite the oft-cited New Jersey inferiority complex, two-thirds of all New Jerseyans say they have little or no concern about what others think of their state.

• Another poll found that a majority of Americans were unfamiliar with the Bush Administration’s energy plan, New Jerseyans think more “greenly” about energy issues than citizens across the nation, and Americans who feel most affected by the energy problem tend to favor increasing energy production over conservation. 

• Half of adult television viewers in New Jersey watch the popular mob family saga “The Sopranos,” compared to only a third of viewers in other states. Two-thirds of viewers nationally and three-quarters of those in New Jersey do not believe the show portrays Italian-Americans in a negative way. Majorities of those in the state and nation also disagree that the show glorifies organized crime.
PublicMind results were regularly reported by New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania radio and television broadcasters and carried by the Associated Press and reprinted in newspapers in all three states.

In addition to public polls, PublicMind conducts elite surveys, which poll a specialized population such as members of Congress or university presidents. 

For complete findings, check out Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Web site (publicmind.fdu.edu). 

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