With less than two months to go in his reelection campaign New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie continues to hold onto a sizeable advantage over his Democrat opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono, among likely voters.
A new Rutgers-Eagleton poll reveals that the Republican governor has a 20 percent lead in the governor's race, garnering 55 percent of the vote, while Buono has 35 percent.
"Christie continues to hold a huge lead, although it's not quite as large among likely voters as it is with registered voters, where he is up 22 points," said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and political science professor at Rutgers University, according to Patch.com. "As expected, the race tightened over the summer, with some Democrats coming back to their party's candidate."
Christie continues to lead by a huge margin among independents and has gained traction among more than one-quarter of Democrats.
Christie is also racking up votes among demographics that typically favor Democratic officials. For example, he's almost tied with Buono when it comes to the minority vote and is leading Buono on a number of issues like education and health care, which generally are strong points for Democrats.
In addition, the poll shows Christie winning 41 percent of non-white voters, compared to 43 percent for Buono.
The one issue where Buono leads is same-sex marriage. Christie remains opposed to gay marriage and vetoed a same-sex marriage bill.
Because the Republican incumbent has a clear shot at being reelected, most of the national attention has been focused on the other governor's race being held this year in Virginia.
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