Monmouth’s Polling Director Apologizes, Reconsiders Election Polling After False Prediction of Democratic Blowout in New Jersey

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Monmouth University Polling Institute Director Patrick Murray apologized to New Jersey voters on Thursday for flubbing the state’s gubernatorial race.

As of Friday afternoon, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy (D) led Republican Jack Ciattarelli in the state’s gubernatorial race with 50.7 percent of the vote to Ciattarelli’s 48.5 percent, though 10 percent of ballots were still uncounted. Monmouth’s final poll of the campaign predicted Murphy would win by 11 percentage points, more than five times above his tentative margin.

“I blew it,” Murray wrote in an op-ed for NJ.com. “The final Monmouth University Poll margin did not provide an accurate picture of the state of the governor’s race. So, if you are a Republican who believes the polls cost Ciattarelli an upset victory or a Democrat who feels we lulled your base into complacency, feel free to vent. I hear you.”

“I owe an apology to Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign — and to Phil Murphy’s campaign for that matter — because inaccurate public polling can have an impact on fundraising and voter mobilization efforts,” he added. “But most of all I owe an apology to the voters of New Jersey for information that was at the very least misleading.”

It isn’t the first time Monmouth has inflated a Democratic candidate’s margin in a survey. The polling institute predicted President Joe Biden would win Pennsylvania in the 2020 election by 7 percent, overestimating his final margin by more than 5 percent, while predicting he would win Florida by 6 percent. He lost that state by 3 percent, putting Monmouth’s margin of error at 9 percent.

However, the director of the New Jersey-based institute said his state’s gubernatorial race inspired him to reconsider whether it should continue to conduct polls in close proximity to elections. “If we cannot be certain that these polling misses are anomalies then we have a responsibility to consider whether releasing horse race numbers in close proximity to an election is making a positive or negative contribution to the political discourse,” Murray opined.