Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the New Jersey primary that could guarantee the Democratic front-runner a first-ballot victory in July.

Clinton was ahead of Sanders among likely Democratic primary voters, 54 percent to 40 percent, in the Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday. The state votes June 7, almost at the end of the 2016 primary season.

New Jersey will send 142 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, and Clinton needs just 90 more to clinch the nomination, according to the Associated Press.

"Senator Bernie Sanders hangs in there, but New Jersey looks solid for Secretary Hillary Clinton," said Maurice Carroll, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll in Hamden, Conn. "Some people are 'feeling the Bern.' But in New Jersey, the Bern is lukewarm at best."

There isn't that much of a chance of Democrats switching sides; 85 percent of Clinton voters and 81 percent of Sanders backers said their minds were made up.

Either Democrat would defeat presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in New Jersey and walk away with the state's 14 electoral votes, despite the businessman's ownership of three golf courses in New Jersey and his former ownership of three Atlantic City casinos, according to the poll.

The survey had Clinton ahead of Trump, 45 percent to 38 percent, and Sanders ahead, 49 percent to 37 percent. The differences between the two Democrats are within the survey's margin of error.

"Donald Trump's name was all over Atlantic City in the glory days of casinos, but since the bankruptcies, the Trump name doesn't look like a political winner in New Jersey," Carroll said.

The poll of 1,989 New Jersey voters was taken May 10-16 and had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points. The subset of 696 likely Democratic primary voters had a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook