WEST LONG BRANCH – Four polls released by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in the seven days prior to this year’s elections were all within 2 percentage points of the actual winning margin in those races.
This came in a year when many polls went wide of the mark in races across the country.
Monmouth’s final poll in the New Jersey U.S. Senate election showed incumbent Cory Booker with a 14-point lead. According to the preliminary vote count, Booker actually won this race by 14 points – 56 percent to 42 percent. Two other public polls issued in the final weeks of the campaign set the winning margin at either 12 or 24 points.
Monmouth also forecast incumbent Republican Scott Garrett’s win in New Jersey’s surprisingly competitive 5th Congressional district. Monmouth’s 11-point call in that race came within two-points of the final 13-point margin.
Monmouth also released attention-grabbing poll numbers in Georgia during the final seven days of the Campaign. Monmouth’s eight-point lead in that state’s U.S. Senate race for eventual winner, Republican David Perdue, was seen as an outlier in a race that every other public poll pegged as much tighter. In the end, Monmouth’s poll was the only one that correctly forecast Perdue’s 53 percent to 45 percent win.
Monmouth’s six-point lead for incumbent Gov. Nathan Deal in that same Georgia poll came closest of all the non-partisan polls to Deal’s actual eight-point victory.
Monmouth also released polls from South Dakota and North Carolina earlier in the week before Election Day. Monmouth’s South Dakota numbers came closest of all the public polls to the winning margins in three statewide races there. The North Carolina poll showed incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan ahead by two points nine days before the election. She lost that seat by less than two points in what turned out to be among the three tightest Senate races in the country this year.
Monmouth University polls conducted on House races in New Jersey during mid-October also came closest to the final results in those races. In the 3rd district, an open seat that national Democrats had hoped to capture, Monmouth found a fairly stable 10-point lead for the Republican candidate. The Republican ended up winning by 11 points when other non-partisan polls showed a much closer race – ranging from a tie to a five-point lead. In New Jersey’s 2nd district, Monmouth’s poll was the only one to show incumbent Frank LoBiondo winning by more than 20 points. He won by 25.
During the 2014 election season, Monmouth conducted polls in seven different states, covering seven U.S. Senate elections, five governor’s races and four Congressional contests.
Monmouth has now conducted polls in 13 states as well as nationally. The Polling Institute’s director, Patrick Murray, was recently referred to as “New Jersey’s Nate Silver.”
The Monmouth University Polling Institute was established to be a leading center for the study of public opinion on important state and national issues. The Polling Institute’s mission is to foster greater public accountability by ensuring that the voice of the public is part of the policy discourse.
Additional information about Monmouth University polls is available by visiting www.monmouth.edu/polling.
