Kamala Harris should’ve had a breakout summer by all objective measures, Save Jerseyans, but reliable polling suggests she’s struggling to keep the Biden 2020 coalition intact.
Was “brat summer” a bust?
Here’s one data point here at home:
New Jersey Republicans continued their long post-2020 trend in August of reducing their voter registration gap with Democrats month-over-month. As of September 1st, the state boasts 6,621,933 registered voters including 2,524,384 Democrats, 1,603,550 Republicans, and 2,415,353 unaffiliated registered voters.
But while Democrats posted a net gain of 2,576 in August 2024, the month of the Democrat National Convention in Chicago, Republicans jumped by 5,444 across all 21 counties. Republicans still trail Democrats statewide by the staggering total of 900,000 registrations, but that shortfall has shrunk by a six-figure quantity since the end of the first Trump Administration, a significant difference and one which could make the difference in next year’s gubernatorial cycle.
The latest registration numbers suggest a possible bump in enthusiasm last month for Democrats (who have experienced net losses of voters recently in the Garden State) but no change in the overall dynamic.
There hasn’t been any public polling released in New Jersey since Kamala Harris became the GOP nominee. Back in March 2024, Donald Trump trailed Joe Biden by a single-digit margin in an Emerson survey. An internal poll released by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Curtis Bashaw’s campaign last month claimed that he was only 5-points behind Democrat candidate Andy Kim.
