Monmouth Poll Shows NJ Dems Likely to Pick Up House Seats

Democrats have a 19-point advantage over Republicans in the generic House ballot among all registered voters in New Jersey, according to a Monmouth University Poll released Monday.

Fifty-four percent of registered voters in New Jersey say they would vote or lean toward voting for the Democratic candidate in their district compared with 35 percent who would support the Republican candidate if the election was held now.

If the result holds in November, it could spell trouble for the five Republican representatives in the state. Democrats from New Jersey currently have seven representatives in the House.

The leading reason for the poor showing of Republicans in the poll is disapproval of President Donald Trump, followed by the recently enacted tax reform law, which most state residents say hurts them.

Other details of the poll show:

• The 19-percentage-point gap in favor of Democrats in New Jersey is significantly wider than the generic House vote edge of nine points in a national poll last month.
• Democrats won the statewide House vote by eight percentage points in 2016 and an even smaller two in the 2014 midterm.
• Even more significantly for Democratic fortunes, the poll finds the overall swing is coming mainly from GOP-held seats. In the five House seats currently held by a Republican, 46 percent of voters prefer the GOP candidate and 44 percent the Democrat. The aggregate vote from these five districts in the past two House elections averaged a 22-point advantage for the Republicans.
• The poll's vote share in the seven seats currently held by Democrats – a 31 percentage point gap – is in line with the average 30-point advantage Democrats held in these districts in both 2016 and 2014.
• Only 34 percent of New Jersey voters approve of the job Trump is doing, while 61 percent disapprove. Even among residents in the state's five GOP-held congressional districts, Trump's approval rating is only 43 percent, compared with 53 percent who disapprove.
• Only 35 percent of state residents approve of the new tax reform law, while 46 percent disapprove. Even in GOP-held House districts, only 42 percent of residents approve of the tax plan, while 46 percent disapprove. Nationally the new law has 41 percent support, while 42 percent are against it.

The survey was conducted by telephone from April 6-10 with 703 New Jersey adults, including a subset of 632 registered voters. The results have a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percent for the full sample and +/- 3.9 percent for voters.

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