For immediate release Tuesday, May 24, 2016 5 pages

Contact: Krista Jenkins 973.443.8390; kjenkins@fdu.edu

Trump is Toast in the Garden State

Sanders Beats Clinton in a Head to Head with Presumptive Republican Nominee

Fairleigh Dickinson University, May 24, 2016 – Donald Trump faces an uphill battle among New Jersey voters regardless of whom he faces in November. But his prospects are made more challenging when pitted against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. The most recent statewide survey of registered voters from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind finds that if the election were held today, over half (57%) would support Bernie Sanders over Donald Trump (33%). Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still bests Donald Trump by double digits, but her lead is cut to 48-37.

Sanders also enjoys the highest favorable ratings as compared with Trump and Clinton. Half (54%) have a favorable opinion of Sanders, compared with 43 percent for Clinton and 33 percent for Trump.

“Even though it’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which Sanders would become the Democratic nominee, he’s clearly the preferred candidate in our Democratic leaning state,” said Krista Jenkins, professor of political science and director of PublicMind.

In a Clinton-Trump match up, a gender gap in the state is sizable. Over half of all women (56%) support Clinton, with half of all men (49%) saying they’d support Trump. Among single women, Clinton does even better, garnering 62 percent of their support. The only groups that offer a majority or more of their support to Donald Trump are Republicans (74%) and married men (54%), and Trump achieves a favorable rating at or above 50 percent among the same two groups only.

As what’s been found nationally, the appeal that Sanders has among Millennials is striking in the Garden State. Almost eight-in-ten (78%) favor Sanders over Trump, with significantly fewer supporting Clinton (52%) over Trump (22%).

Democrats view Sanders and Clinton with the same degree of favorability (73 and 71%, respectively). Although Republicans largely embrace Donald Trump, his favorables (65%) are less than those among partisans of the same stripe when compared with his Democratic opponents.

“Even though Trump has longstanding connections in the state, he’s facing an uphill battle in convincing Garden State voters to support him. And, as PublicMind reported yesterday, his close connection with the governor has hurt Christie among almost half of all respondents,” said Jenkins. “Apparently the ‘tell it like it is’ hypothetical ticket is something many in New Jersey would like to take a pass on.”

Methodology - The Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind survey was conducted by landline and cellular telephone May 18-22, 2016 among a random statewide sample of 702 self-identified registered voters. Results have a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.7 points, including the design effect.

Methodology, questions, and tables on the web at: http://publicmind.fdu.edu Radio actualities at 201.692.2846 For more information, please call 201.692.7032

Methodology

The most recent survey by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind was conducted by telephone from May 18-22, 2016 using a randomly selected sample of 702 self-identified registered voters in New Jersey. One can be 95 percent confident that the error attributable to sampling has a range of +/- 3.9 percentage points, including the design effect. The margin of error for subgroups is larger and varies by the size of that subgroup. Survey results are also subject to non-sampling error. This kind of error, which cannot be measured, arises from a number of factors including, but not limited to, non-response (eligible individuals refusing to be interviewed), question wording, the order in which questions are asked, and variations among interviewers.

PublicMind interviews are conducted by Opinion America of Cedar Knolls, NJ, with professionally trained interviewers using a CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) system. Random selection >is achieved by computerized random-digit dialing. This technique gives every person with a landline phone number (including those with unlisted numbers) an equal chance of being selected.

Landline households are supplemented with a separate, randomly selected sample of cell-phone respondents interviewed in the same time frame. The total combined sample is mathematically weighted to match known demographics of gender, age, education, and race. 406 interviews were conducted on landlines and 296 were conducted on cellular telephones.

The sample was purchased from Marketing Systems Group and the research was funded by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Tables

If the election for president was held today, and the choices were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump [randomize], who would you vote for? PID Gender Race Education Age All Dem Ind Repub Male Female White Non-white HS/Some college College+ 18-34 35-59 60+ Clinton 48% 80 35 10 39 56 39 70 46 50 52 47 47 Trump 37% 7 47 74 49 26 46 19 40 34 22 40 44 Other (vol) 7% 6 7 7 6 7 7 6 7 7 15 5 3 DK/Both (vol) 5% 3 8 5 3 6 6 3 4 5 7 4 4 Refused (vol) 3% 3 3 4 2 4 3 2 3 3 4 3 2

If the election for president was held today, and the choices were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump [randomize], who would you vote for? PID Gender Race All Female married Male married Female unmarried Male unmarried Employed Retired/ unemployed Clinton 48% 51 34 62 46 46 52 Trump 37% 31 54 22 41 37 37 Other (vol) 7% 7 6 8 7 9 3 DK/Both (vol) 5% 6 3 5 4 5 4 Refused (vol) 3% 4 3 4 2 3 3

If the election for president was held today, and the choices were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump [randomize], who would you vote for? PID Gender Race Education Age All Dem Ind Repub Male Female White Non-white HS/Some college College+ 18-34 35-59 60+ Sanders 57% 85 54 19 49 64 48 76 54 60 78 53 48 Trump 33% 6 35 72 45 23 41 16 38 29 14 37 43 Other (vol) 5% 4 6 4 3 6 5 5 4 6 6 5 4 DK (vol) 2% 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 2 0 3 2 Refused (vol) 3% 3 3 3 2 4 3 1 3 3 2 3 3

If the election for president was held today, and the choices were Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump [randomize], who would you vote for? PID Gender Race All Female married Male married Female unmarried Male unmarried Employed Retired/ unemployed Sanders 57% 57 40 72 60 59 53 Trump 33% 29 52 18 35 32 36 Other (vol) 5% 6 4 7 3 5 4 DK (vol) 2% 3 1 1 2 1 3 Refused (vol) 3% 5 3 3 0 2 4

Hillary Clinton PID Marital status x Gender All Dem Ind Repub Married women Married men Unmarried women Unmarried men Haven’t heard of 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Favorable 43% 73 30 8 50 32 50 38 Unfavorable 52% 23 62 91 47 65 43 57 DK/Ref (vol) 4% 5 8 1 3 3 6 6

Bernie Sanders PID Marital status x Gender All Dem Ind Repub Married women Married men Unmarried women Unmarried men Haven’t heard of 2% 3 4 1 2 3 2 2 Favorable 54% 71 52 33 52 46 62 59 Unfavorable 39% 23 39 63 40 48 33 36 Unsure 5% 4 5 3 7 3 4 4

Donald Trump PID Marital status x Gender All Dem Ind Repub Married women Married men Unmarried women Unmarried men Haven’t heard of 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Favorable 33% 8 41 65 27 50 19 37 Unfavorable 62% 88 55 30 67 46 78 57 DK/Ref (vol) 5% 4 4 5 6 3 3 5

Exact Question Wording and Order

US1 and US2 withheld

NJ1 through NJ5 released May 24, 2016

NJ6 I’m going to read you some names. Please tell me if you’ve heard of the following people, and whether you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of each. [Rotate names]

NJ3D Hillary Clinton

NJ3E Donald Trump

NJ3F Bernie Sanders

1 Favorable

2 Unfavorable

3 Haven’t heard of

8 Don’t know (vol)

9 Refused (vol)

TG1 through TG5 withheld

V1 and V2 withheld

TECH1 through TECH3 withheld

PH1 through PH6 withheld

ALZ1 through ALZ3 withheld

And now turning to the presidential election….

PRE1S If the election for president was held today, and the choices were Hillary Clinton and Donald

Trump [randomize], who would you vote for?

1 Hillary Clinton

2 Donald Trump

3 Other (vol)

8 DK (vol)

9 Refused (vol)

PRES2 If the election for president was held today, and the choices were Bernie Sanders and Donald

Trump [randomize], who would you vote for?

1 Bernie Sanders

2 Donald Trump

3 Other (vol)

8 DK (vol)

9 Refused (vol)

Weighted sample characteristics