From crumbling roads and bridges to a massively underfunded public employees’ pension and health benefits system to the highest in the nation property taxes, the Garden State has a lot of problems.

New Jersey Legislature (Tim Larsen, Governor's Office)
New Jersey Legislature (Tim Larsen, Governor's Office)
loading...

A Fairleigh Dickinson University (FD) PublicMind poll released Monday revealed a large percentage of New Jersey’s registered voters don’t trust either major political party to solve the problems.

“When we asked which of the two major parties people trust to fix the problems facing the state, we found that 22 percent say they favor Republicans with 27 percent who point to the Democratic Party,” said Krista Jenkins, professor of political science at FDU and director of PublicMind. “By far however, the biggest voter getter is neither party with 47 percent. This means that almost half of those surveyed have little if any faith in either party to provide workable solutions.”

As most would likely guess, Republicans are more apt to trust Republicans and Democrats have a higher tendency to have faith in Democrats. Here's the party breakdown:

  • 62 percent of Republicans trust members of their party to solve the state’s problems;
  • 62 percent of Democrats trust Democrats;
  • 34 percent of Republicans trust neither party;
  • 32 percent of Democrats trust neither party;
  • 67 percent of independent voters has no faith in either party

There was statistical difference among men, women, white, non-white, younger or older registered voters. In every demographic category, distrust for both parties ranged from the mid to upper 40 percentile.

“Not only are people pessimistic about New Jersey’s future, they also doubt the parties can do anything about it,” Jenkins said.

The survey also measured name recognition of those that could possibly run as 2017 gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey.

“At this point name recognition is key and the big winner there is Senate President Steve Sweeney who is known by 45 percent of voters. Behind him is current Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno with 31 percent name recognition,” Jenkins said.

Only 17 percent view Sweeney favorably, but just 16 percent view him unfavorably. Guagadno’s ratings are similarly slim with 11 percent favorable and 10 percent unfavorable. Fifty-five percent of voters have never heard of Sweeney and 69 percent had no clue who Guadagno was.

Finding on other possible contenders included:

  • Democratic State Sen. Ray Lesniak had 28 percent name recognition;
  • Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop was known to 18 percent
  • Former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Phillip Murphy had 11 percent name recognition;
  • Republican Assembly Leader Jon Bramnick was known to 11 percent.

The poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Nov. 9 -15, 2015 among a random statewide sample of 830 self-identified registered voters. The margin of error is +/- 3.9 points.

Kevin McArdle has covered the State House for New Jersey 101.5 news since 2002. Contact him at kevin.mcardle@townsquaremedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @kevinmcardle1.

 

 

More From New Jersey 101.5 FM