Hurley: Historically Inaccurate Stockton University Poll Favors Mazzeo

The historically inaccurate Stockton University poll has just released a survey of the New Jersey 2nd District New Jersey State Legislative races.

It seems as though they wanted to inject their will into this very competitive race … as it appears strange that this poll would be released 4 days after early voting has already been underway.

They have known about early voting all year. Why didn’t they survey this race in advance of the voters actually going to the polls?

It should come as no surprise, and, I predicted long ago that the Stockton poll would drop late in the campaign and that it would show Vince Mazzeo leading Vince Polistina.

It does, by a margin of 48% to 41 %, with 6% undecided.

They sampled 401 registered voters, who they determined to be likely voters.

The poll of the 2^nd District, which covers most of Atlantic County, was conducted for the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton and has a margin of error of +/- 4.9%.

Of interest, even after being in state elective office for nearly 8 years, Mazzeo was known by 63 percent of those voters surveyed by Stockton University.

Polistina has been out of state elective office for 10 years and was known by 52 percent of those surveyed.

In the New Jersey General Assembly race, the Stockton poll breaks the race down … and sees razor thin “pick ‘em” like this:

Caren Fitzpatrick = 24 percent

Claire Swift = 23 percent

John Armato = 23 percent

Don Guardian = 22 percent

To give you a few recent examples of the inaccurate history of The Stockton University poll … This same Stockton University poll from 2019 regarding the 1st Legislative race had now Senator Michael Testa trailing former Senator Bob Andrzcak by 14 percentage points.

Testa went on 11 days later to win by 8 percentage points, a swing of 22 percentage points.

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The Stockton University poll was also spectacularly wrong in a past election between United State’s Congressman Frank LoBiondo and Bill Hughes, Jr. in 2014, when it concluded that LoBiondo was leading Hughes by only 44% to 38%

A short while later, LoBiondo won the General Election by a wide margin of 61.5% to 37.3%

This year, Stockton University released the Testa poll weeks ago; but, for reasons that only Stockton University knows, the Mazzeo vs. Polistina poll has been released on the 4th day of actual voting taking place.

This is a very bad and manipulative practice that should cease and desist going forward.

To those who haven’t voted yet, pay no mind to this unreliable tripe, that was strategically timed to be released after the voting had already begun.

This is wrong at so many different levels.

Vote your conscience. Vote for the candidates of your choice.