Political Influences
Corzine's shutdown of state government had some effect on New Jersey and national politics. According to Clay F. Richards, assistant director of a poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Corzine had a 44% approval rating, his highest since January 2006. The poll also indicated that 71% of respondents disapproved of the legislature's handling of its job. According to Richards, "New Jersey voters clearly blame the state legislature for the budget crisis, and say the property-tax relief that the legislature insisted on in the compromise is more politics than real reform." Of those polled, 23% indicated that they would not vote for those representatives who voted for the sales-tax hike in the future. The legislature's next election was in November 2007, but Corzine did not face re-election until 2009.
There was also speculation that the U.S. Senate race, already seen as tight, would be affected. Republican candidate Thomas Kean, Jr. said Democratic Senator Bob Menendez did not oppose Corzine's tax hike because Corzine appointed Menendez to serve out the remainder of his own term in the Senate.
According to Peter Woolley, director of Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind poll, the situation of the election was similar to the 1990 election, when underdog Senate candidate Christie Whitman, a Republican, nearly defeated well-known Senator Bill Bradley due to Democratic Governor Jim Florio's sales- and income-tax increases. By August, Woolley concluded that the tax increase had had no effect on Menendez's re-election chances.
Read more about this topic: 2006 New Jersey State Government Shutdown
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