Enthusiasm Gap in New Jersey

There's been a lot of discussion of the enthusiasm gap in Virginia and the possibility that Creigh Deeds might lose not because a lot of Obama voters support Bob McDonnell but because they don't show up to vote period.

The New Jersey poll we'll be releasing tomorrow finds that's part of the problem for Jon Corzine as well.

Last year Barack Obama beat John McCain 57-42 in New Jersey, winning a little over 2.2 million votes to a little over 1.6 million for his opponent.

When it comes to the likely voters for this year's election though, they report having voted for Obama by a margin of just 48-46.

Let's put that into some additional perspective. There are about 2.2 million voters in your average New Jersey Gubernatorial election. So if our numbers are right 1,056,000 of them would be Obama voters and 1,012,000 of them would be McCain voters.

1,056,000 out of the 2,200,000 people who voted for Obama in the state last year means about 48% of his voters are planning to come back out. But 1,012,000 of the 1,600,000 who voted for John McCain means roughly 63% of his supporters are planning to vote this fall.

That in and of itself would be a pretty big problem for Corzine. But unlike in Virginia where Creigh Deeds has the Obama voted locked up pretty much as well as Bob McDonnell has the McCain vote locked up, Corzine is winning only 63% of the Obama vote while Christie is taking 76% of the McCain vote.

So it's certainly an uphill battle for Corzine to get reelected.