Latest New Jersey Primary Polls 2016: Hillary Clinton Likely To Clean Up Garden State

If the latest New Jersey primary polls prove true, Hillary Clinton will have no problem winning the state’s 2016 elections — the same way she did in 2008 against Barack Obama.

As Hillary coasts toward the Democratic nomination, New Jersey reflects national questions about just how sharply she’ll come out ahead of Bernie Sanders. The two most recent primary polls show the state leaning heavily Clinton, though the stark divide between each survey indicates some uncertainty over how the 126 delegates and 16 superdelegates will be distributed.

Perhaps the weightiest of the New Jersey polls are Quinnipiac University’s results, released two weeks ago — three weeks before the state’s primary actually takes place. In that match-up, Hillary landed 54 percent of the vote compared to Bernie’s 40 percent; 14 percentage points significantly outside of the poll’s 3.7 percent margin of error. Additionally, the poll boasted a sample size of nearly 700 likely voters.

Another recent primary poll, from Monmouth University, predicted an even more comfortable win for Hillary. In their questionnaire, 60 percent of respondents preferred Clinton to Sanders’ 32 percent. With a nearly 30-point spread, that would be great news for Hillary; but those numbers alone shouldn’t make her too complacent. They were released at the very beginning of May, and featured a much smaller sample size of 301 likely voters. Patrick Murray. director of the learning institution’s polling center, said that this data boded extremely well for Clinton’s path to the nomination.

“Despite her loss in Indiana, it looks like [Hillary] is on target to corral the delegates she needs for the nomination. New Jersey is shaping up to make a significant contribution to her final total.”

These latest polls may also be representative of a growing trend in New Jersey toward Clinton. When Rutgers released similar research in April, Hillary outpaced Bernie by less than 10 percent of the vote. Since then, whether you’re referring to the Quinnipiac or Monmouth numbers, Clinton has clearly gained traction in New Jersey — a push that could definitively tie up the Democratic nomination for her.

On a more positive note for Sanders, New Jersey does allow independents to vote for Bernie. It’s a characteristic in primaries that’s favored him in the past, even in places where he lagged significantly behind Hillary in pre-election polling — such as Michigan.

In the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump will have no problem scooping up delegates to bolster his overall winnings. The presumptive GOP nominee held some of his biggest leads in the 2016 race before pollsters stopped tracking New Jersey’s conservative contest.

Although New Jersey does boast a sizable population, next Tuesday’s real focus will, of course, be California. The state holds the most delegates of any Democratic primary contest — 475 delegates and 73 superdelegates. In that state, polls are split about whether or not Hillary has carved out an unbeatable lead against Bernie. Some claim she has a lead of as little as 2 percentage points, like the Public Policy Institute of California, while others claim one as much as 18 percentage points, like SurveyUSA and KABC.

June 7, the last real “Super Tuesday” of the Democratic race, will also hold five other primaries on the same day: California, New Mexico, Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota. In total, Democratic candidates will be competing for more than 800 delegates — including superdelegates who may be influenced by their state’s voting.

Do you think the 2016 New Jersey primary polls have correctly called Democratic results for Hillary Clinton?

[Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images]