Poll shows New Jersey minority voters more moderate on issues than Democrats nationwide

A new poll published by the Stockton Polling Institute found minority voters in New Jersey tend not to lean as far left as Democrats as a whole on a wide range of issues.

“Minority voters mostly still supported liberal positions on issues tested in the poll of 933 New Jersey registered voters of all partisan affiliations,” reads the study. “But the percentages supporting the more liberal positions were consistently at least a few percentage points lower than the entire Democratic Party and a few points higher for the more moderate positions.”

On guns, 65 percent of New Jersey minority respondents supported making it harder to buy a firearm, while 70 percent of Democrats as a whole support stricter gun control.

Similarly, “64% of Black and multiracial respondents supported legalizing marijuana for recreational use, compared to 70% of Democrats; 27% of Black and multiracial voters would legalize it for medical use only, while 22% of all Democrats would,” the poll concluded.

The trend continued on most major policy issues, including abortion, religion, and immigration.

“On any given measure, the difference on the ideological scale may be only a few percentage points. But the pattern of more Black and multiracial voters being moderate was consistent on the vast majority of issues polled,” said John Froonjian, director of the Hughes Center. “On no issue did a higher percentage of Black and multiracial voters support the more liberal position.”