New Jersey Voters Are Primed for Bold, Progressive Change
By Brian Burton and Abby Steckel
New Jersey voters support workers rights to unionize, alternative public safety programs.
After a year that has tested our resilience as a nation, there are many parts of our life for which we eagerly await a return to normality. However, as we emerge from this pandemic, many of us are also keenly aware that simply returning to the status quo will not suffice. Recent polling shows that the opportunity is ripe to enact ambitious changes. In an April poll of likely voters in New Jersey, Data for Progress asked respondents about their opinions on issues ranging from labor rights to tax policy and ballot reformatting. What the data reveals is an electorate prepared to see its leaders pursue ambitious policy change across multiple aspects of society.
First, we observe overwhelmingly strong support for New Jersey workers’ right to unionize. More specifically, we see that voters across the political spectrum support this right by a 60-point margin. Not only are union rights popular, but support for them is also impressively bipartisan: we observe strong majority support across the board for the right to unionize, with Democrats showing highest support (88 percent) followed by Independents and Republicans (72 percent and 70 percent support, respectively). New Jersey voters know that workers are deserving of dignity and respect, and they expect their legislators to make every effort to support them and protect their rights.
New Jersey voters also want to see a fair process in the state’s primary system. More specifically, voters are ready to see an end to “The Line”. The use of “The Line,” a practice by which candidates backed by the county parties are aligned in a column on the primary ballot, has been shown to have significant distorting effects on electoral outcomes. When asked about their awareness of this practice throughout the state, a 22-point margin of likely New Jersey voters said that they are either somewhat or very familiar with this ballot design and its uniqueness compared to ballots in other states. This awareness is consistent across party lines, with 65 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of Independents, and 62 percent of Republicans reporting being somewhat or very familiar with the practice.
Use of the “The Line” is unfair to both candidates and voters alike: the ballot design has been shown to give undue influence to county parties in the primary process as they can structure the ballot to heavily favor their slate of preferred candidates. Worse still, it makes voting increasingly confusing, with some voters believing that races are uncontested while others inadvertently vote for multiple candidates within a single race, causing their ballot to go uncounted. In short, “The Line” presents clear obstacles to the democratic process. When presented with this reality, likely voters support restructuring the primary election ballots by a 21-point margin, thereby removing “The Line” entirely. Along partisan lines, we see that Democrats and Independents support removing “The Line” by similar margins (26-point and 29-point margins, respectively) along with a plurality of Republicans. New Jersey voters know that it is they who elect leaders, not the parties, and they demand that their primary processes reflect that fact.
Finally, voters have voiced their desire to see major changes to the state’s law enforcement practices. By a 23-point margin, New Jersey voters support redirecting resources away from police and towards community-based services such as mental health treatment and violence prevention programs (60 percent support vs. 37 percent oppose). Among Democrats, a decisive 83 percent of voters believe that law enforcement dollars should be reallocated. Combined with a majority of Independents, who support reallocation by a 29-point margin, and more than a third of Republicans, there is a strong coalition of voters across the political spectrum that want to see new approaches to law enforcement and crisis intervention in New Jersey.
While significant strides have been made towards police reform, New Jersey voters are ready for more transformational change. We found that a majority of white, Asian, Latino/a, and Black voters support the reallocation of police resources towards community-based services. Black and Asian likely voters are particularly supportive of this proposal, with 73 percent and 78 percent respectively expressing their approval. With this in mind, legislators should continue to push to build communities that are safer, fairer, and more supportive of all residents.
New Jersey voters are finished with “business as usual.” They are ready to see their society transformed for the better with their government leading the way. Voters want to see their state legislators pursue an ambitious progressive policy agenda that will build a New Jersey that is stronger, kinder, and fairer to all its residents. They have made their desires clear, and now it is time for their leaders to deliver.
Brian Burton (@Brian_C_Burton) is a senior analyst at Data for Progress.
Abby Steckel is a polling intern at Data for Progress.
METHODOLOGY
From April 12 to 24, 2021, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 2,058 likely voters in New Jersey using SMS and web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±2 percentage points.