All Eyes on New Jersey

Three major elections will occur tomorrow: the Virginia gubernatorial, the New Jersey gubernatorial, and the New York City mayoral races. These are typically the big races a year following a presidential election.

The polls consistently show that New York City Mayor Bloomberg will easily be re-elected to a third term. The polls also show a widening gap -- now about 12 points -- favoring Republican Robert McConnell over Democrat Creigh Deeds.

The nail-biter appears to be in New Jersey. Democrat incumbant Jon Corzine is facing a serious challenge from Republican Chris Christie. Corzine has outspent Christie by a factor of 3 to 1 ($24M to $8M), and that margin seems to have brought Corzine back into the race. Pollster.com,(http://www.pollster.com/polls/nj/09-nj-gov-ge-cvc.php), a terrific site that summarizes poll
data, calculates that from the average of all recent polls, the race is tied at 41.8% to 41.8%.

Complicating the dynamics of the NJ race is the presence of Independent candidate Chris Daggett, a former Republican, who is polling about 10% of the vote right now.

Looks like the 8% of voters who are undecided will be deciding the fate of who will occupy the governor's mansion for the next four years ....