New Jersey's public employees are still not thrilled with Republican Governor Chris Christie or the job he's doing, but they are in the minority.

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In fact, the negative feelings public workers have regarding Christie are about the only bad news for the Governor in the newest Fairleigh Dickinson University-Public Mind poll released this morning.

For the second consecutive survey, registered voters say the state is headed in the right direction. Poll director Peter Woolley says that's a phenomenon not seen in eleven years of polling through four Governors. According to today's statewide survey, 50% say the state is headed in the right direction, while 41% say it's on the wrong track.

However, public employees do disagree: 50% of public employee households say the state is on the wrong track.

51% of voters, say they have a favorable view of Christie, including 29% of Democratic voters. Only 37% of Garden State voters say their view of him is unfavorable. A year ago in May, Christie's 'favorables' were upside down at 40% favorable and 45 unfavorable.

"This spring has not been marred by the same depth of bad feeling about funding schools as in past years," explains Woolley. "Typically, spring means fights over school budgets followed by even more fights over the state's next budget."

The news keeps getting better for Christie. 49% say he's doing a "good" or "excellent" job, including 28% of Democrats who agree and overall 56% of voters say they approve of the job the Governor is doing, a new high for PublicMind polling of the Governor's performance: 33% disapprove. A year ago in May, Christie only broke even, with 44% approving and 44% disapproving.

"The good news is obvious," says Woolley. "The bad news may be that, historically, the only way to go from here is down."

Women approve of Christie by a margin of 9 points (48-39), and men by the much healthier margin of 37 points (64-27). Public employees disapprove of the Governor (35-52), but non-public employees approve by a 2-to-1 margin (60-29).

The poll of 797 registered voters statewide was conducted by telephone with both landline and cell phones from April 30 through May 6, 2012, and has a margin of error of +/-3.5 percentage points.

 

 

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