The secret about those polling numbers (part II)

Because we know our subject matter like the back of our hands, we reported on Monday the following bit on polling in the GOP gubernatorial primary:

Forget the public polls that you read about elsewhere. These polls for public consumption are virtually worthless in primaries unless they are polling actual primary voting GOPers.

The dirty little secret about polling in the GOP primary is that all three campaigns, Corzine, Lonegan and Christie’s all have this race within the margin(s) of error. When we averaged the recent polling that we have seen, the race comes out to 38-38, with the undecided voters coming in anywhere between 65%-70% self-identified “conservative” or “very conservative.”

All this explains why Christie finally got off the “I am the law” routine and started talking about being a conservative. Christie may have enough of a head start and fundraising advantage down the stretch to hold off Lonegan’s surge.

The large number of undecided voters and their self-identification as conservatives doesn’t bode well for Christie. He needs to use his significant financial resources to convince these conservatives that he won’t double cross them if elected nor will he veer too far to the left in the general election. Conservatives are not worried so much that a candidate will moderate to win the general. Conservatives are more concerned that a moderate candidate will become Christie Whitman if elected.

It should be noted that our sources confirm recent Christie polling indicating that Lonegan’s momentum may have slowed. This suggests that the Christie campaign’s new messaging may be working. The Christie camp believes now that Lonegan may have peaked too early. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen.

Sure enough a public poll came out today touting a huge Christie lead. Don’t believe it. The Monmouth University poll appears to be more of an outlier then anything else. While the methodology of the poll appears to be done correctly, the profile of the polls undecided voters is way out of line with other polls. Don’t get us wrong, Christie very well could win.

This doesn’t mean that Monmouth University polls should be discounted in the future either. Polling in primaries, especially statewide primaries for dying parties such as the NJ GOP, is very difficult to get right. Christie could be in the lead, he could win. In the last two weeks, the campaign made a course correction and has dominated mail boxes.

Our point is the this race is far from over.

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