New Jersey

9/22: 6 new polls have been released showing leads for Sen. Obama between 4 and 13 points. New Jersey remains leaning Obama.

9/12: A new Marist College poll shows Sen. Obama's lead down to 3. This is the closest poll in New Jersey since March. As a result, Obama's lead shrinks to 8 in my projection. More polling is needed at this point but New Jersey may be moved to barely Obama status if this trend continues.
9/9: A new FDU poll shows Sen. Obama;'s lead in New Jersey down to just 6. Their previous poll 3 months ago showed Sen. Obama ahead by 16. It may have been a registered voter poll, while today's is a likely voter poll but shows a distinct shift. As a result, New Jersey is moved from safe to leaning Obama.
8/13: Quinnipiac's new poll in New Jersey puts Sen. Obama ahead by 10 as compared to only a 6 point lead in their last poll in June. Despite this, Sen. Obama's lead shrinks in New Jersey as FDU's poll from late June is removed from my formula. Sen. McCain cuts the deficit to 12 and gains about 57,000 votes.

8/6: Rasmussen's new poll in New Jersey shows Sen. Obama ahead by 8. This is up 3 points from their last poll in July. As a result, his leads expands 1 point (about 39,000 votes) from 12 to 13.

7/23: Monmouth U./Gannett released a new poll today in New Jersey. It shows Sen. Obama ahead by 13 which is relatively in line with the recent poll average, although there have been fairly wild swings on either side. Monmouth ran this poll on both registered & likely voters. The registered voter poll shows Obama ahead 42-28. Since the likely voters polls have a stronger weight in my calculation, that is the poll that is used. (See the Methodology post from June 21st for further clarification).

7/17: A new poll in New Jersey by Strategic Vision (R) shows Sen. Obama ahead by 9. Despite this closer poll than other recent polls here, his lead expands by about 2%. This is because it replaces the FDU poll taken at the end of March where his lead was only 5.

7/9: Rasmussen's new poll in New Jersey shows a 4 point drop in Sen. Obama's support. It appears now that New jersey is slightly closer than the Democrats would like. Another poll like this will move New Jersey from safe to leaning Obama.

6/28: Fairleigh Dickinson University released a poll showing Barack Obama with a 16 point lead. This is the first poll since Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign and shows like most other states a bump for Obama.

6/20: Monmouth/Gannett poll from late April appears to be an outlier and the gap in New Jersey will close considerably once this poll removed from consideration. For now, New Jersey is a strong Democrat state, but will become at the very least a leaning Democrat state with the next poll. McCain is likely to make a play here, although not likely to win. He may use New Jersey as a way to get Obama to spend money here that ordinarily Democrats would not. Here's hoping. I'm a New Jersey resident and would love to see some presidential campaigning here.