A new poll from a GOP super PAC aiding Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign for governor finds a close race – though Mikie Sherrill, Ciattarelli’s Democratic opponent, still holds a small lead.
According to the poll commissioned by Change NJ and conducted by KAConsulting, former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway’s polling firm, Sherrill leads Ciattarelli by a 47% to 44% margin. That’s slightly tighter than Conway’s prior publicly released poll from July, which had Sherrill up 47%-42%.
“Polls continue to show a tightening margin-of-error race between Jack Ciattarelli and Mikie Sherrill, and one thing is clear: Sherrill is on her heels and limping to the finish line as controversies surround her,” Conway said. “Ciattarelli has the momentum and enthusiasm going into the last days of the campaign.”
The polling memo further notes that Ciattarelli holds a small lead among unaffiliated voters (42%-39%), and that Ciattarelli is viewed by slightly more voters as the candidate who will “bring change to New Jersey” (41%-38%).
Conway’s poll isn’t too far off from other recent polls of the race, which have generally found Sherrill leading by modest margins. Polls released last week by Quinnipiac University, Fox News, and Fairleigh Dickinson University – all trusted nonpartisan pollsters – put Sherrill up by six, five, and seven percentage points, respectively.
Ciattarelli’s own campaign, though, seems to think that the race is even closer than what his allied super PAC is saying. A late September internal poll released by Ciattarelli’s campaign found him leading 46%-45%, which remains the only publicly released poll of the race to show a Ciattarelli lead. (A handful of others have found the race tied.)
The KAConsilting poll was conducted from October 15-16 with a sample size of 601 registered and likely general election voters and a margin of error of +/- 4.0%.
