FDU Poll Finds Voters Support Anything to Bring Down Prices

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Natural Gas Plants Get Highest Support

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, April 14, 2026 – Energy prices continue to drive public opinion in New Jersey, with a majority of voters coming out in favor of anything that could bring down prices. The latest results from the FDU Poll, in partnership with the International Union of Operating Engineers, show voters favor an “all of the above” approach, with majorities supporting expansion of natural gas, renewable and nuclear power in the state, as well as a ban on new data centers.

“Freezing electric bills helps, but it doesn’t solve the long-term problem or bring costs back down to where they used to be,” said Dan Cassino, a Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the Executive Director of the FDU Poll. “The state needs to expand capacity, and voters don’t seem to care too much how we do it, so long as it gets done.”

Respondents were asked about their support for four different proposals that could bring down energy prices: building various kinds of power plants (natural gas, nuclear and renewable) and banning the construction of new data centers until more power plants can be built. All the proposals have the support of a majority of voters in New Jersey, but the extent of that support and the constituencies for each vary widely.

The extent to which Garden State voters favor an “all of the above” approach can be seen in how many respondents favor all, or most, of the proposals. Eighteen percent said that they supported all four of the proposals, and another 40 percent supported three out of the four. Just ten percent supported zero or one of them. During last year’s gubernatorial election, Governor Mikie Sherrill endorsed just such an strategy in order to increase New Jersey’s electricity generation, and bring down prices to consumers.

“Governor Sherrill is leading in the right direction to support an ‘all of the above’ generation strategy that includes natural gas generating plants that could include a transition to hydrogen production once it is a more available alternative,” said Greg Lalevee, Business Manager for IUOE Local 825. “New Jersey voters understand we need to be quickly producing more energy in our state to make electricity more affordable.”

The construction of natural gas plants – which can come online faster than other types of power plants – gets the highest marks from voters. Seventy-six percent of voters say that they favor building new natural gas plants, with relatively little variation across party lines: support is highest (83 percent) among Republicans but is 70 percent among Democrats. Similarly, support is nearly unanimous among conservative (87 percent) and MAGA voters (90 percent) but is still positive among progressive (60 percent) and liberal (68 percent) voters.

“Even voters who might prefer green energy options want something done fast,” said Cassino. “Electricity bills are up right now, and voters are in favor of anything that can be done to bring them down in the short term.”

The construction of more renewable energy plants, using solar or wind, is nearly as popular among voters, with 67 percent supporting, but views of these plants are highly polarized. While the construction of natural gas plants gets high marks across the board, it’s Democrats (90 percent), liberals (87 percent) and progressives (92 percent) who want more renewables. Republicans (38 percent support), conservatives (40 percent) and MAGA voters (28 percent) are opposed.

“Voters take their cues from party leaders,” said Cassino. “Republicans from President Trump on down have been vocally opposed to new renewable plants, and their supporters are following suit.”

Nuclear plants are the least popular of the three options, but even there, a majority (56 percent) favor their construction. Republicans (65 percent) are more supportive than Democrats (48 percent). New Jersey currently gets about half of its energy from nuclear plants, but they are aging and will likely need to be overhauled or replaced in upcoming years.

On the demand side, about two-thirds of voters (65 percent) favor a ban on the construction of new data centers in New Jersey until more power plants can be built. While proposals like this have traditionally been bogged down by attempts to find a balance between environmental and economic concerns, support for a ban runs across party lines: 61 percent of Republicans support it, alongside 69 percent of Democrats.

“New Jersey voters are sending a clear message: the operators of new data centers need to show how their facilities will not raise rates,” said Lalevee. “Ideally, they might even be able to generate surplus power and feed it into the state grid. If they can do that, people will be a lot more receptive.”

The proliferation of data centers – especially in Virginia – has been cited as a driver of increased electricity bills throughout the East Coast. Currently, data centers use about 5 percent of the electricity in New Jersey.

“Rightly or wrongly, voters blame data centers for their increased electricity bills,” said Cassino. “The argument that doing so would hurt the state economy doesn’t help when people are worried about their own finances.”

***

A previous release, outside of the sponsorship of these questions, showed that New Jersey voters were also strongly in favor of allowing balcony-sized solar panels, which can plug into a house’s electrical system without the need for an electrician. Such panels are widely used in Europe, where they retail for about $400, and cut as much as 10 percent off a household’s energy bills. Seventy-eight percent of voters say that they are in favor of allowing such panels in New Jersey, with only 19 percent opposed.

Methodology

The FDU Poll is a proud member of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative and is devoted to ensuring that our results are presented in such a way that anyone can quickly and easily get all of the information that they may need to evaluate the validity of our surveys. We believe that transparency is the key to building trust in the work of high-quality public opinion research, and necessary to push our industry forward.

For sponsored questions, like some of those presented in this release, the FDU Poll works in partnership with the sponsor on question topic, but the FDU Poll is solely responsible for question wording, and all questions must go through the same rigorous testing process for bias and comprehensibility as all FDU Poll questions. The sponsor has no control over decisions over weighting or any other aspect of the polling that might impact the results.

The survey was conducted between March 20 and 28, 2026, using a voter list of registered voters in New Jersey carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Respondents were contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 805 registered voters in the state. Surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews to landlines (127) and cellphones (275) and the remainder (404) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of registered voters in New Jersey. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education, region and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.2, largely driven by the weights used on the race/ethnicity variable.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 805 registered voters is +/-3.4 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-3.9 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

805 Registered Voters in New Jersey

Figures do not include individuals who declined to answer demographic items.

Man

47% N = 376
Woman

52% N = 417
Some Other Way

1% N = 5

18-30

15% N = 119
31-44

22% N = 175
45-64

33% N = 266
65+

30% N = 243

White

65% N = 523
Black

14% N = 113
Hispanic/Latino/a

12% N = 97
Asian

4% N = 32
MENA

1% N = 10
Other/Multi-racial

2% N = 18

No college degree

57% N = 459
College degree or more

42% N = 337

Democrat (including leaners)

48% N = 355
Independent (no lean)

15% N = 113
Republican (including leaners)

37% N = 271

Question Wording and Order

First off, we’d like to ask you a few questions about government here in New Jersey.

NJ1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Mikie Sherrill is handling her job as governor?

Approve
Disapprove
Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
Refused [Vol]

NJ2. Already, the governor has come into conflict with President Trump. When there is a conflict, what do you think the governor should do? Should she try and work with President Trump, or should she use lawsuits and other means to defy him?

Work with him
Defy him
It depends or similar [Vol]
Don’t Know
Refused

B1. In order to balance the budget, the state of New Jersey is going to have to either cut spending, increase taxes, or both. I’m going to list some proposals that could cut spending or increase revenue for the state. Which of the following proposals to help balance the budget would you support? You can say “yes” to as many as you like.

Not make a full payment to teacher’s pension plans
Reduce support for public colleges and universities
Reduce the property tax rebates received by seniors in the state
Reduce state support for local schools
Cut state funding for the Rutgers football team
Reduce funding for NJ Transit
Charge a fee to businesses who have employees that get healthcare from the state

Support/Yes
Oppose/No
Don’t Know
Refused

There are also a number of other important issues facing the state.

NJ3. Right now, casino gambling in New Jersey is limited to Atlantic City. Do you favor or oppose [rotate] expanding casino gambling to other areas in the state?

Favor
Oppose
[DK /REF]

E1. In recent years, New Jersey has generated less electrical power than it uses, meaning that New Jersey power companies have to buy power generated in other states. At the same time, new data centers, many used for what are sometimes called Artificial Intelligence systems, are coming online. These data centers are thought to be vital to the future economic growth of the state. That combination of lower supply and higher demand has meant higher electricity bills for people in New Jersey. What, if anything, do you think we should do about it? You can say yes or no to as many options as you like.

[Yes/No/ Don’t Know for each]

Ban the construction of new data centers, until more power plants can be built?
Build new natural gas power plants, which can come online faster than other types of power?
Build more nuclear power plants, which give reliable power, but may take years to come online?
Build more renewable power plants, like wind and solar farms, which provide clean energy, but will take years to come online?

Support/Yes
Oppose/No
Don’t Know
Refused

[Yes/No/ Don’t Know for each]

Ban the construction of new data centers, until more power plants can be built?
Build new natural gas power plants, which can come online faster than other types of power?
Build more nuclear power plants, which give reliable power, but may take years to come online?
Build more renewable power plants, like wind and solar farms, which provide clean energy, but will take years to come online?

Support/Yes
Oppose/No
Don’t Know
Refused

Intervening Questions Held for Later Release

NJ6. Outside of the US, many people make use of solar panels made for balconies that sell for a few hundred dollars, plug directly into a wall socket in your house, and don’t need to be installed by an electrician. These panels typically aren’t enough to power a home, but can cut electricity bills. Would you favor or oppose a law that would allow people in New Jersey to use these panels to generate electricity?

Favor changing the law to allow people to use these panels
Oppose changing the law to allow these panels
Don’t Know
Refused

Release Tables

Number of Proposals Supported
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
0	3%	1%	4%	4%
1	7%	7%	9%	7%
2	31%	30%	29%	34%
3	40%	36%	41%	45%
4	19%	25%	17%	9%

Ban the construction of new data centers, until more power plants can be built?
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
Favor	65%	69%	60%	61%
Oppose	32%	29%	36%	35%
Don’t Know/Refused [Vol]	3%	3%	4%	5%

Build new natural gas power plants, which can come online faster than other types of power?
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
Favor	76%	70%	75%	83%
Oppose	21%	27%	20%	14%
Don’t Know/Refused [Vol]	3%	3%	4%	4%

Build more nuclear power plants, which give reliable power, but may take years to come online?
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
Favor	56%	48%	61%	65%
Oppose	42%	51%	35%	33%
Don’t Know/Refused [Vol]	2%	1%	4%	2%

Build more renewable power plants, like wind and solar farms, which provide clean energy, but will take years to come online?
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
Favor	67%	90%	60%	38%
Oppose	32%	10%	36%	61%
Don’t Know/Refused [Vol]	1%	3%	4%	1%

Support for Energy Proposals
	Liberal	Moderate	Conservative	Progressive	MAGA
Ban Data Centers	62%	66%	59%	62%	58%
Natural Gas Plants	68%	76%	87%	60%	90%
Nuclear Plants	54%	51%	70%	52%	64%
Renewable Energy	87%	75%	40%	92%	28%

Support for Energy Proposals
	Under 30	31-44	45-64	65+
Ban Data Centers	67%	70%	64%	61%
Natural Gas Plants	66%	71%	82%	78%
Nuclear Plants	54%	62%	51%	58%
Renewable Energy	76%	77%	62%	61%

Would you favor or oppose a law that would allow people in New Jersey to use these panels to generate electricity?
	Overall	Dem	Indp	Rep
Favor	78%	86%	74%	68%
Oppose	19%	13%	22%	26%
Don’t Know/Refused [Vol]	3%	1%	4%	7%