well we've now got a little more than a month to go before New Jersey's June 10th primary and a new Ruter Eagleton poll shows who's leading in the race for governor About 42% of registered Republicans and Republican leaning independents say they're pulling for former Assemblyman Jack Chidarelli while Democrats are more divided among the six candidates in the crowded race for that party's nomination But as Eagleton poll director Ashley Coning points out it all comes down to turnout She joins me now Ashley good to talk to you Before I get to front runners I want to start with this How significant is the percentage on both sides of voters who just simply don't know who any of these candidates are yeah I mean this is a pretty big percentage We see at least a third who are unsure of who to vote for we still see very large numbers who either have no opinion when it comes to favorability of these candidates or don't even know who they are This this isn't necessarily out of the norm We've often seen this at least in New Jersey politics when we're talking about those running for governor and whenever we've assessed favorability leading up to somebody's uh you know taking office So this isn't abnormal but it does show that voters are really not paying attention right now especially given the national landscape So what does Jack Chidarelli's lead among Republicans um suggest about momentum going into the prior primary and um quite honestly just name recognition yeah I think a couple of important things to note We kind of have a tale of two primaries here On the Republican side we see in the polling that Jack Cherelli far and away also the the 2021 gubanatorial nominee um has support from Republican voters uh and Bill Spedia being in a far distant second So given the margin of error given the small sample size this is actually still a pretty substantial lead among whom voters would choose among Republicans and Republican leaders We have to remember though this is among registered voters When we're talking about primaries primaries are especially notorious for low turnout low information low engagement and especially when this is the only big item on the ballot this time around So then on the Democratic side given that there's no clear frontr runner um is there messaging are there events is there anything that could happen in the next couple of weeks that might sway voter preference and also perhaps get more people engaged yeah I mean this shows us that the race on that side is close Um and and that's the takeaway that we can do from these numbers That means that any effort to either persuade voters to make sure voters get out and vote to mobilize those voters that are key to their base that is crucial in these next several weeks whether it's through events whether it's through fundraising getting out the messaging uh door knocking mailers This is a crucial GOTV time for a lot of these candidates on the Democratic side Um on the GOP side what role if any does an endorsement from President Trump play um in helping to decide who becomes the nominee So we actually asked this question among Republican and Republican leaning voters and it's kind of split We see about 46% say that an endorsement would make them more likely to support the candidate and 46% say it would not make any difference to their vote So again I think we have this similar theme where we really don't know how an endorsement from President Trump or any support from the Trump administration will play out in this gubanatorial election um especially for the Republican and especially once the Republican hits the general I mean you mentioned that low name recognition is not a typical for an off-election year Um but what do these campaigns need to do in these next couple of weeks um in terms of boosting that I mean I would say that a lot of these folks have been very forward- facing in terms of holding events and the like Um but how does this sort of stack up to previous gubanatorial elections you know I I don't think we're looking at something that's all that different And we need to understand that New Jersey voters have an election every year and that we're also competing with the national highly partisan highly politicized climate right now that's coming down from the capital And so it's very difficult for voters in any state to try to understand all of this information recognize the candidates to realize that there is a primary even approaching in several weeks So it really is all about name recognition and getting that message out not just within political circles not just with the engaged party bases and the organized interests but with the average voter who they can either persuade or make sure to turn out on June 10th Very quickly anything that you're looking at even in terms of uh demographic race things like that in polling um from now until June 10th Yeah I mean I think it's more a numbers game of who's actually going to turn out Who are the candidates going to get to turn out uh and you know where we're going to see in a couple of weeks and what all of that means I'm sure we're going to see another low percentage of turnout like we've seen in the past Um but this is obviously a really consequential election So those voters who do turn out on June 10th have a very consequential vote at stake Ashley Coning for us Ashley thank you so much Thanks to you so much Brianna