Parental Control Arguments Hit Democrats Hard in NJ Legislative Races

Asking about hot button issue turns General Assembly race into a dead heat; Murphy approval remains steady

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, October 18, 2023 – While New Jersey residents favor Democratic over Republican candidates in the upcoming race for the state legislature, Republican attacks based on parental control of schools cut into those margins substantially, potentially putting Democratic control of the General Assembly at risk. According to the latest results from the FDU Poll, asking residents about the parental control issue makes them six points more likely to say that they’ll support the Republican candidate in the upcoming election in their district, and nine points less likely to support the Democratic candidate.

“Republican candidates are using these attacks because they work,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the director of the poll. “If voters are thinking about parental control of schools when they go to the ballot box, Democrats are in real trouble.”

In November, all 80 seats in the New Jersey General Assembly and the 40 seats in the State Senate will be up for election. In the 2021 elections, Republicans gained six seats in the General Assembly, and even though that ballot also featured a gubernatorial election, only 40 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot. In the 2019 race, the last time an election was headlined by state legislative elections, turnout was just 27 percent.

Overall, 37 percent of NJ residents who say that they’re likely to vote in the upcoming election (or already have cast a ballot) say that they’ll vote for the Democratic candidate in their district, while 29 percent say that they’ll vote for the Republican, and the remainder (27 percent) aren’t sure.

But asking about the parental control issue changes these figures substantially. In order to test the effectiveness of Republican messaging on parental control of schools, half of respondents were asked about their views on the issue before being asked if they were likely to vote in the upcoming election, and which candidate they’d support. A quarter of residents – 24 percent – say that parents should be able to choose what schools do and do not teach. About the same number – 22 percent – say that parents should not really influence curricula. The majority (52 percent) say that parents should have some control over what’s taught in schools. Democrats are more likely than other partisan groups to say that parents should have little control; Republicans are more likely to say that parents should have complete control.

Priming respondents to think about the parental control issue with this question doesn’t significantly change the reported likelihood of voting, but it does change who voters say that they’ll support, especially among political independents. In the unprimed condition – when the parental control question is asked after vote choice – independents prefer Democratic candidates over Republicans by 20 points (28 to 8, with 42 percent undecided). When the parental control question is asked first, independents prefer Republicans by 16 points (24 to 8, with 63 percent undecided). The priming has only marginal effects on self-identified Republicans and Democrats.

The net effect is that when NJ voters aren’t asked about parental control of schools, they say that they’ll vote for the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate by a 16 point margin (42 to 26); when they’re primed to think about it, they still prefer Democrats – but only by one point, 33 to 32, a difference that’s not statistically significant.

“This issue is doing a lot to move independents into the Republican column,” said Cassino. “The question, though, is whether those independent voters can be mobilized in what’s normally a very low turnout election.”

The news isn’t all bad for Democrats in the state. Even as Republican candidates have made attacks against Democratic Governor Phil Murphy a major part of their campaigns, his job approval has remained stable since the FDU Poll last measured it in May, with 44 percent of residents (including 73 percent of Democrats) saying that they approve of the job he’s doing as governor, up from the 40 percent approval he had a year ago.

Methodology

The survey was conducted between October 6 and October 14, 2023, using a certified list of adult New Jersey residents carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Lists of residents were obtained from Aristotle International of Washington, DC. Respondents were randomly chosen from the list, and contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 813 respondents. 178 of the surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews on landlines, 250 on live caller interviews to cell phones, and the remainder (385) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of adult NJ residents, as of the 2020 US Census. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.3.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 813 residents is +/-3.5 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-4.6 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

813 New Jersey Residents

Figures are weighted to overall voter characteristics from the 2020 US Census. Figures do not include individuals who declined to answer demographic items.

Man                                 47%                 N = 385

Woman                             51%                 N = 414

Some Other Way           1%                  N = 7

18-30                           19%                N = 155

31-44                           31%                 N = 250

45-64                           31%                 N = 250

65+                               19%                 N = 152

Democrat (with leaners)              41%                 N = 334

Independent                                  15%                 N = 123

Republican (with leaners)           29%                 N = 235

White                                            57%                N = 466

Black                                               13%                N = 103

Hispanic/Latino/a                                      19%                N = 158

Asian                                        9%                  N = 69

Other/Multi-racial                                     2%                  N = 17

No college degree                       54%                N = 439

College degree or more              45%                N = 363

Question Wording and Order

First off, we’d like to ask you a few questions about the government here in New Jersey.

NJ1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Phil Murphy is handling his job as governor?

1. Approve
2. Disapprove
3. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

NJ2. [Half get this question here, half after NJ4a] In recent years, there has been a movement to give parents more control over what is, and is not, taught in public schools in New Jersey. How much influence do you think parents of K through 12 students should have over what’s taught in their schools?

1. Parents should be able to decide what schools teach
2. Parents should have some influence over what schools teach
3. Parents should not really influence what schools teach
4. [Not sure/Don’t Know]

NJ4. We will soon have elections for the state assembly and state Senate here in New Jersey. Most people don’t vote in these statewide elections. How likely do you think it is that you’ll vote in this election?

1. Almost certain
2. Very Likely
3. Somewhat Likely
4. Not Very Likely
5. Not at all likely
6. Already Voted
7. [DK/REF]

NJ4a. In the upcoming NJ legislative election in your district, do you think that you’ll vote for the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate, or are you not sure? [Shuffle options]

1. Republican Candidate
2. Democratic Candidate
3. Not Sure
4. [DK/REF]

Further questions held for later release

Region Classifications

Northwest: Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Sussex, and Warren Counties
Northeast: Bergen and Passaic Counties
Urban Core: Essex, Hudson, Mercer, Middlesex, and Union Counties
South: Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem Counties
Coast: Atlantic, Cape May, Monmouth, and Ocean Counties

Release Tables