President Joe Biden has upside-down job approval ratings of 43%-54% in New Jersey, a number that might not matter in a blue state that hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988, according to a new Monmouth University Poll released today.
Biden’s approvals are up slightly from a Monmouth Poll released last August that put his approvals at 41%-52%.
His approvals among Democrats are at 83%-14%, but they plunge to 31%-65% among independents. He’s at 40%-59% among men, statistically even (48%-49%) among women, has approvals of 42%-56% among white voters, and is underwater among people of color (45%-451%).
In 2020, Biden carried New Jersey by sixteen percentage points and 725,087 votes against Donald Trump. Today’s poll did not include Trump, who has never fared well in the state.
The state’s fourteen electoral votes are not in play. New Jersey had not backed a Republican presidential candidate since 1988 when George H.W. Bush carried the state by fourteen points against Democrat Michael Dukakis. Dukakis won just Essex, Hudson, and Mercer counties.
Despite his longtime ties to New Jersey – as a U.S. Senator from Delaware, he was well-liked in South Jersey—Biden was not the state’s first choice in 2020; all of the top elected officials and every county chair backed favorite son Cory Booker. He barely received any Garden State support when he ran in 1988 and 2008.
The Monmouth University poll was conducted from February 29-March 4 with a sample size of 757 registered voters and a margin of error of +/- 4.3%.