Following the final weekend of campaigning, which included a stop in Glen Ridge and an incident where Gov. Chris Christie gets into an argument with a teacher at a rally in Somers Point (the teacher has penned a response in her blog), his lead over state Sen. Barbara Buono has grown to 36 points among likely voters, up 10 points in the last month, according to a new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll. A Monmouth University Poll also has Christie with a 20-point lead over Buono.
And the rally ends, inevitably, with Christie arguing with a teacher pic.twitter.com/YyLsoJVTWQ
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) November 2, 2013
“Over the past month, Christie’s campaign appears to have convinced more Democrats to abandon Buono,” said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and professor of political science at Rutgers University. “Whether Democrats are switching to Christie or just planning to stay home, the small gains Buono had made with her party base over previous months have been reversed. The risk is great for Democrats up and down the ballot if uninspired party faithful fail to turn out.”
Minimum Wage Increase
Voters continue to favor overwhelmingly a constitutional amendment raising the state’s minimum wage by one dollar to $8.25 per hour, 68 percent to 30 percent.
According to the Rutgers-Eagleton, 56 percent of Christie voters favor the amendment despite his opposition – down six points since September. Ninety-one percent of Buono’s backers favor the increase. Women are stronger supporters than men, 72 percent versus 63 percent. A 12-point gap in support exists between the lowest and highest income brackets, though 59 percent in the highest income bracket still support the measure.
“It seems that despite the lack of enthusiasm by Democrats for voting in this election, the minimum wage amendment will pass,” said Redlawsk. “Almost all Democrats will support it, and enough independents agree to likely put it over the top.”
[polldaddy poll=7532412]
“We’re number one???”
“…..No,no, no…..Not in my house!”
“I’m gonna ask you one more time. I want another cannoli and a double espresso. And make it snappy.”
Don’t give up (your chance to make a change)! Don’t let the media tell you that you’re wasting your time (by voting) (against Christie)! Get out and tell him to go away!
I don’t know what exactly is going on, but it appears that Christie is scolding the teacher and his wife is loving it.
I was at the GR stop. I got the feeling he was appealing to the upper middle class voter. He stressed that he was just one of us. Growing up in Livingston, a town just like GR. .Joking about the Mets, Yankees & RedSocks. Importantly, he explained that bipartisanism is the only way to get things done. Oh, he also mentioned “Washington is broken” & alluded that he could fix it..
As with many politicians of the Christie stripe, they claim their positions are for your benefit but their actions show the opposite. Women’s healthcare, in particular, has been hard hit under this Governor and no one should be surprised if, in a second term, women’s health and reproductive freedom is attacked. The NYTimes article last Wednesday was an eye-opener when it detailed the millions of dollars this Governor has taken from monies allocated to settle claims of mortgage fraud ($175 million), from clean energy funds ($700 million) and from the Transportation Trust Fund (used for roads, bridges and the public transit systems), all in an effort to counter the Governor’s revenue projections which had no chance of becoming reality. (The affordable housing funds – $166 million – that he wanted to take is in litigation.) NJ’s bond rating is one of the worst in the country. So much for Mr. Christie’s claims of fiscal responsibility.
I wrote about seeing Chris Christie at two different town halls this year. One in Montville, where he behaved much like oliveoyle detailed above, and the other in Paterson, where he was much less schmoozie. (Although, he did kneel and allow a laying of hands at the end of the town hall.) He is not for “us” — his MO has been one of pretending to give “power to the people” when his policies actually just create a situation where the many townships scramble for crumbs and fight amongst themselves for diminishing support.
He’ll surely win tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be answerable for his first term’s policies as he readies himself for the next quarter-term, a preface to his attempt for a run for POTUS. Get ready to get to know Lt. Gov. Guadagno.
https://mutterschwester.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/chris-christie-just-say-no/
This teacher’s letter is a joke. She writes describing why she went to hear him speak: “I don’t have cable, I don’t read newspapers. I don’t have enough time. I am a public school teacher that works an average of 60 hours a week in my building. Yes, you can check with my principal. I run the after-school program along with my my classroom position.”
And is she really including her a side job– running the after-school program- in that 60 hour figure? I bet it’s a not requirement, but rather some sort of duty that she’s paid extra.
(Oh, and I won’t bring up the 2 months off in the Summer. Add those months in, and that 60 hours shrinks quite a bit.)
I’m sure she, and a few here will see this as an ATTACK on teaching, because anyone who doesn’t follow the normal orthodoxy is anti-teacher, anti-education, anti-kids, hates bunnies, and wants to crush all flowers.
One picks up some small sense of the political futility (and self-righteousness) of life in Montclair by the fact that, right fter I happily cast my vote in the poll for Christie, the results showed an overwhelming majority of previous voters had chosen Barbara Buono.
I also await the inevitable Baristanet posts the day after this gubernatorial election by assorted posters (the usual drearily predictable suspects, I suppose one could say) congratulating themselves on how they voted. No matter the actual results, of course.
That teacher’s letter on her blog, by the way, was just awful. Badly argued and full of (as someone noted to excessive length on her blog site) really egregious grammatical mishaps. With teachers like her…
Sorry, cathar.
I CANNOT WAIT to pat myself on the back, brag about voting, buy some snacks from the PTA at my polling place, and pat myself on the back for picking a winner in Christie.
And as always, B-net will be the FIRST of many places I plan on doing my victory lap!
You’re welcome to join me.
That is an awful lot of people voting for someone who doesn’t want the job. You are aware that voting isn’t a contest to see if you are right about the winner but that it is the core of a democratic form of government ?
Prof, you vote for Christie tomorrow and I’ll happily pat you on the back myself.
It’s those who will vote for Buono and then, in the face of what will likely be a Christie rout, will then post smugly here that they nonetheless voted for his wan, intellectually arid opponent who worry me. I have yet to read or hear a single cogent, cohesive argument, other than that she’s a Democrat, why Barbara Buono would make a better governor. I’d bet that even her much less accomplished running mate Milly Silva (remember her? she’ll surely be a Jersey trivia question someday) could make a half-literate case for the election of Buono. And she was all the party that foisted (more accurately allowed itself to be bought by) Corzine on us twice could come up with?
why Barbara Buono would make a better governor….
Because she wants the job and isn’t one foot out to door to run for POTUS ?
Because she isn’t using Hurricane Sandy as a prop while unable to get money paid to people from the state she governs ?
Just off the top of my head.
And cathar, since you’re so gung ho to vote for him, please list the reasons why I should do so.
Because what I see, despite his “Jersey Comeback” bluster, is a state still in the top 10 in all the bad economic categories. Worse still, he ran on property tax relief. Anyone think he’s been successful at that? Of course, he suspended the homeowner’s rebates. What is that, some form of reverse economic psychology?
Woop de doo, he won a couple battles against those horrible people, the teacher’s union. The Times had a good story the other day pointing out that he’s using the same old accounting tricks his predecessor used to balance the budget, only worse.
OH! But he also sure likes to stand in front of a camera down the shore and look concerned. That seems to be enough for some folks.
I’ll tell you one good reason to vote for Christie, mike 91( whom I always imagine in designer steel-rimmed glasses, wearing a permapress “workshirt” and waffle=soled work boots, carrying volume 1 of Isaac Deutscher’s worshipful bio of Trotsky): he is a superb administrator, as he proved time and again during his tenure as US attorney. What has Barbara Buono, by contrast, ever run? She certainly hasn;t even been able to run her own campaign in a state where Dem registrations fr outnumber Republican ones.
HRHPG, he did a wonderful job post-Sandy too. He got out there and he used his bulk and his honk of a voice positively, too. He is a hell of a lot more forceful a personality than Obama, even though he works well with the the phony in DC more famed during his Senate career for voting “Present”rather than any real legislative or administrative accomplishments. In the process Christie also exposed the “no-can-do” lackadaisical attitudes of such Democratic “worthies” as Frank Pallone and Rush Holt. (Do you even dare to imagine that a Democratic governor wouldn;t have been equally prone to self-touting his actions? Worse, could you imagine how NJ would have fared post-Sandy if the boobish Corzine had been “in charge?” And you’re much welcome to the NEA, though their having a successful candidate in their pocket (Buono will not be successful) would sure be enough to make me ponder leaving NJ. That blog “letter” by the teacher chided yesterday by Christie is cause for alarm already – really, that whiny woman with only a loose grasp of the rules of English grammar educates children somewhere in this state?
In other words, c’mon, folks…
Cathar – as you are a detail-oriented fellow, I would like to point out that Obama never voted “Present” as a US Senator. He voted “Present” as an Illinois State Senator on approximately 3% of his legislative votes.
Christie is only so popular due to the complete incompetence of his predecessor Corzine. Corzine was so bad, he turned a blue state red.
he is a superb administrator, as he proved time and again during his tenure as US attorney.
Great! Let’s vote for him for that then. The rest is more filler than one would expect in a hot dog. OOOOOh, a forceful personality! Too bad we can’t get him a guest spot on the Sopranos.
Stu- While Corzine surely didnt help, I’d give McGreevey some of the credit as well.
Well, BB does look pretty good in leather and denim, God help us if Christie ever tries that combo.
“Te tha MOON Alice! TE THA MOON!”
Mellon, the day I see Christie in camo and toting an Uzi and a dead waterfowl is the day I know he’s serious about the presidential bid.
It’s obvious that Kim Guadagno is going to win the governorship in a landslide.
I did mean that Obama voted “present” while serving as a state senator. Sorry if that read confusingly.
But that these 129 votes represent but 3% of the total, that claim comes from Obama himself (and to me sounds rather typical of his usual dismissal of his critics). Obama himself is the “source”of the assertion that out of some 4000 votes in the Illinois Senate he only voted “Present” 129 times, in other words. Additionally, the New York Times claims, rather ingenuously by my lights, that voting “present” is a “traditional” way of indicating opposition to a bill. But as far as I can tell, the Times provides no evidence for this.
Spiro, really,I’m disappointed in you. No self-respecting duck hunter would ever tote an UZI. A rapper, maybe, if he could lay his hands on one. But it’s even been a long time since the UZI was the weapon of choice of the IDF, as it happens.
Mike 91, superb administrative abilities are useful to any politician, but maybe especially a governor. They’re what Corzine prominently lacked. (Along with real financial aptitude, it seems.) And what enterprise to your vast knowledge has Barbara Buono in fact ever run? (I’d add, “Why are you so humorless” too, but really you seem beyond hope on this one.) So you make fun of them but suggest…well, exactly what do you suggest Buono has which trumps Christie’s managerial talents?
Feel free to post on Wednesday, however, how much “smarter” you were than the poor slobs who helped re-elect Christie. I’m quite sure you already feel this way, you may as well make it “official.”And I also thus trust you’ll have a miserable next few years living under Christie’s 2nd administration. If Christie’s executive decisions make you and several other of my fave posters squirm over the next year or two, so much the better.
Most federal disaster aid gets passed in a few days rr few weeks at most. Sandy aid took 6 plus months just to get approved – never mind distributed. So no he hasn’t done anything even close to a good job.
Christie will make everyone “squirm” for a year, at most. Then he’ll simply hand the reins to Kim Guadagno, who may end up making even cathar squirm. Or not. Who the heck knows? Anyway, might as well start practicing the phrase “Governor Kim Guadagno” now.
Christie’s most recent most egregious most expensive affront to us taxpayers: making a special election two weeks ago, so all the Dems coming out for Booker for US Senate wouldn’t vote against Christie tomorrow.
“The Montclair blue douches are in full throat.”
“F’em where they breathe.”
Your Freudian slip is showing, algb.
If Bernie Madoff could vote, he’d be voting for the Governado.
Barbara Buono has as much chance of being elected governor as I do of becoming the next Pope; however, fellow residents of NJ, take heart. Christie is a good man, and he will be an excellent President once the current nightmare is over, and that is such a real possibility that it restores my faith in society. 🙂 Wahoo!!
Actually deadeye, Christie has about the same chance of being the Republican nominee as you being Pope as well. The wingnut tea partiers in Dogpatch have already laid the “RINO” tag on him. Maybe he’ll get the VP slot, if he can manage to keep his belief in evolution quiet.
And thanks to cathar for four paragraphs that prove my point. You listed not one thing that Christie has done to deserve my vote. Also, you added your usual “anyone to the left of me is a communist” drivel that reveals how much of that “deep thinker” act is just that.