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Who will become the next governor of New Jersey?

A new Quinnipiac University poll finds if the election were held today, Democratic businessman Phil Murphy would win.

“Phil Murphy leads Kim Guadagno 45-29, with 22 percent undecided at this stage of the game,” said Mickey Carroll, the assistant director of the poll.

He was quick to point out, however, we’re still nine months away from the election and none of the candidates has established any real name recognition yet.

“Seventy percent of voters haven’t heard enough about Murphy to form an opinion, despite all of those millions of dollars he’s spent, and 61 percent haven’t heard enough about the lieutenant governor (Guadagno) to make a decision,” he said.

“Gov. Christie, popular or unpopular, has dominated New Jersey news from the day he took office. These 2017 candidates are all but anonymous.”

“You can’t make any judgments at this stage of the game, except that Murphy has an awful lot of organizational rapport and an awful lot of money.”

He pointed out money always plays a factor in political races, and the upcoming gubernatorial election will not be any different

“Phil Murphy has already spent plenty of cash and he’s piled up support from many county (Democratic) committees, but will anybody resent the fact that he’s spending a lot of money? If they do, it’ll be unusual, because New Jersey doesn’t seem to care much about that,” he said.

The poll finds Murphy leads Guadagno 38 to 28 percent among independent voters, and 80 to 5 percent among Democrats, while Guadagno leads among Republicans 72 to 6 percent.

Women favor the Democrat 50 to 21 percent, while men are divided, with 40 percent for Murphy and 37 percent for Guadagno.

The poll did not ask respondents about any other specific candidates declared or undeclared.

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Contact reporter David Matthau at David.Matthau@townsquaremedia.com.

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