Stockton Poll Reveals NJ Voters’ Views

On Oct 18, 2024

New Jersey voters’ opinions on the economy fall along partisan lines, shift to the right on immigration, and remain stable in support for abortion rights, according to a poll on the top election issues released today by the Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University.

“A September poll identified the economy, immigration and abortion rights as New Jersey voters’ top issues in this year’s election,” Hughes Center Research Director Alyssa Maurice said. “The purpose of this poll was to dig a little deeper to understand where exactly voters stand on each of these issues.”

Economy

On the New Jersey economy, most voters (54%) are feeling very (15%) or somewhat optimistic (38%) about its direction. In terms of personal finances, 43% rated their own financial situation as excellent (10%) or good (33%), while 56% said it was fair (38%) or poor (18%). The cost of everyday goods (45%), housing costs (19%), and health care costs (10%) were the top three financial struggles cited by voters.

Views toward the economy varied by political party. More than half of Democrats rated their financial situation positively versus one-third of Republicans. Economic outlook also fell along partisan lines with 79% of Democrats feeling optimistic about the future of the economy, while only 1 in 4 Republicans felt the same. Independents landed in the middle.

When voters were asked which of the major party’s proposed economic policies they think would be the best approach for Congress and the president to take in dealing with the U.S. economy, the highest rate chose increasing taxes on the wealthy (28%), followed by reducing the federal deficit and national debt (14%) and implementing a federal ban on price gouging groceries (14%).

The top three approaches differed by party affiliation with Democrats citing increased taxes on the wealthy (51%), a ban on price-gouging groceries (16%) and increasing the child tax credit for low and middle-income families (15%), and Republicans split evenly between reducing the federal deficit and national debt (17%), increasing tariffs on trade (17%), and eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits (16%). Independents want increased taxes on the wealthy (24%), to lower the deficit and debt (23%) and a ban on price gouging groceries (16%).

Immigration

A majority of New Jersey voters view immigration positively with 55% saying it’s a good thing overall. Nearly one-third think immigration is a bad thing and 10% are not sure.

Just over half (51%) said immigration to the United States should be more difficult, while 1 in 5 said it should be less difficult and the same rate were unsure. Voters have grown further apart on this matter since 2022 when respondents were evenly split.

When it comes to undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, most voters (59%) said they should be allowed to stay legally as long as they meet certain requirements, while 8% said they should be allowed to stay in the country legally without conditions, and 30% said they should not be allowed to stay legally.

A majority of voters want to curb illegal immigration but are largely supportive of legal pathways to citizenship and easing work authorization for noncitizens. More than half (57%) of all voters (33% of Democrats, 89% of Republicans and 56% of Independents) would support a national effort to deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

As many as 80% of all voters (75% of Democrats, 90% of Republicans, and 84% of Independents), want to increase resources to the U.S. border with Mexico. Only 14% of voters oppose such a measure.

Abortion

Support for abortion rights remains strong in New Jersey and most voters, including a majority of Republicans, would support a federal law re-establishing a nationwide right to abortion

A majority of voters (73%) said abortion should be legal in all (35%) or most (37%) cases, while 1 in 5 said it should be illegal in most (15%) or all cases (5%). These rates remain stable since this question was last asked in a March 2022 Hughes Center poll.

Nearly three-fourths of voters (73%) said a candidate’s views on abortion would impact their vote greatly (44%) or somewhat (29%), but one-fourth said that would have no impact.

A majority of voters (58%), including 1 in 5 Republicans, think the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which eliminated a constitutional protection for abortion and left it to individual states to decide, was a bad thing. A minority of 30% said it was a good thing and 10% are unsure.

Three in four voters said it is very (48%) or somewhat (27%) important to them that future nominees to the Supreme Court share their views on abortion, while 23% said it is not too important (12%) or not at all important (10%) to them.

The poll of 616 registered voters has a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percentage points.

Methodology

The poll of New Jersey registered voters was conducted by the Stockton Polling Institute of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy from Oct. 10-14, 2024. Stockton University students texted cell phones with invitations to take the survey online and Opinion Services supplemented the dialing portion of the fieldwork, which consisted of cell and landline telephone calls. Overall, 91% of interviews were conducted on cell phones and 9% on landline phones. In terms of mode, 65% were reached via dialing and 35% were reached via text-to-web. A random sample of 616 New Jersey registered voters were interviewed. Both cell and landline samples consisted of random digit dialing (RDD) and voter list sample from MSG. Data are weighted based on U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 data for the citizen voting age population in New Jersey on variables of age, race, education level, and sex. The poll’s margin of error is +/- 3.9 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. MOE is higher for subsets. Sampling error does not account for other potential sources of bias in polls such as measurement error or non-response.

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