Thoughts on NJ Governor's Election... Two Weeks Late.

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So it's been two weeks since election day, but i didn't get a chance to blog about it until now.

first, my personal opinion on the results:

saying i was disappointed would be quite an understatement. I've said it before and i'll say it again: by no means am i a supporter of Corzine. However, i oppose many of the core things Christie sides with. Like i said before, healthcare and education are two of the big issues! I just can't understand how anyone would be against mandating health insurance companies to cover mammograms when breast cancer is the number one cause of death for females in the United States. And then to the education aspect - Christie wants to cut funding for early education because he thinks preschool is "babysitting". come on, people... seriously?

and now, comparing the results and our prediction for our class assignment for Somerset County. to refresh your memory, from an earlier post:

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we predict a tight race between Christie and Corzine in Somerset County, with the following percentages:

Jon Corzine - 47%

Chris Christie - 45%

Chris Daggett - 8%

for the voter turnout aspect, we predict: around a 55% turnout rate of the REGISTERED voters (not voting age population). There are 193,345 registered voters right now in Somerset county, so 55% of that would be: 106,340.

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we based our predictions, mainly, on past statistics and the trends. While Somerset County used to be the heart of the republican party in New Jersey, the margins had been decreasing tremendously each election cycle and had become quite competitive and close between the two major parties (in all sorts of races - governor, senatorial, presidential). With the Obama factor, democrats won in the county last year and we (wrongly) thought Corzine would be able to carry on the hype from the Obama factor

in reality, what happened in Somerset County was:

Jon Corzine - 34.29%

Chris Christie - 56.21% (so obviously Christie won. BIG TIME.)

Chris Daggett - 8.71% (extremely close to our prediction!!!!)

and for the voter turnout, 102,922 (approximately 53.23% of the registered voters casted a vote in the Governor's election from Somerset County. our predictions were pretty accurate for the voter turnout aspect.

we attributed the Christie win to several factors - a low democratic turnout (incumbency bias, free-rider problem); the anger and frustration felt by many in the state with the politicians because of the corruption and scandals in the state and people just wanting a change; the national problems we are facing that trickle down to the states and how many attribute it to the party in office currently, not the one that was the root of the problem; let's face it - most of us know at least one person who has lost their job; negative campaigning (omnipresent in EVERY election) - it's a double negative because not only does it work, but it also works the other way because some people are totally against them and use that against the politician; and of course the notion that many were expecting a miraculous overnight turnaround in the problems the nation is facing with the election of Barack Obama and are quite displeased that none of the "changes" have seemed to occur. things don't just happen overnight... they take time, but most of the general public doesn't see that of course.

2009 NJ Governor's Election Prediction

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So as i said in my earlier post from this morning, my project for my 'Elections and Participation' course at Rutgers this semester was to predict the voter turnout rate and who will win in Somerset County (and with what proportion).

I just submitted our prediction, and we predict a tight race between Christie and Corzine in Somerset County, with the following percentages:

Jon Corzine - 47%
Chris Christie - 45%
Chris Daggett - 8%

for the voter turnout aspect, we predict: around a 55% turnout rate of the REGISTERED voters (not voting age population). There are 193,345 registered voters right now in Somerset county, so 55% of that would be: 106,340.

I'll update later in the week with our explanation for the basis of our prediction as i'm still organizing all of our information. Or perhaps when i take a look at the actual results for comparison. I forgot to mention in the earlier post that that is also part of our assignment. When we present next week, we also have to include the actual results, and how much the actual results varied from our predictions and possible reasons and whatnot. So at this point, our assignment is only partly over.

This was (is) definitely a fun, interesting (and hard!) assignment, and I'm quite anxious to see the results tomorrow.

On a general state level prediction, i think Corzine will end up winning (but with a very small margin) the election.

again, a quick reminder : don't forget to go out and vote tomorrow!

UPDATE (7:45 AM on 11/03/09): the grad student that teaches our course sent out the overall predictions from our class, summing up all the counties. Here's the data:


The class expects to see approximately 2,643,282 votes tomorrow (51% of registered
voters) and the final tally to divide statewide:
Corzine: 45.95% of the vote
Christie: 41.65% of the vote
Daggett: 6.21% of the vote


It'll be interesting to see how close we got as a class - as political science students!


Based on an anonymous class vote taken in class yesterday:
80% expect Corzine to win the election
20% expect Christie to win the election


And:
65% would vote for Corzine
20% would vote for Christie
14% would vote for Daggett
1% would vote for Evgeni Malkin (i asked my brother who this was.... because i had no idea... and it's apparently a hockey player).

Election Day is Tomorrow!

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just a friendly reminder that TOMORROW is Election Day!

Don't forget to vote and remind your friends and family to do the same. Just because it is not a presidential election does not mean it is not important for you to cast your votes!

I am definitely interested in what happens in the Governor's election here in New Jersey, and it's implications! To make things even more interesting, my project for my 'Elections and Participation' class is to actually predict the voter turnout and who will win in the governor's election, and with what proportion. We were divided into groups, and our group has to predict for Somerset County, New Jersey.