[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're pleased to welcome Dan Cassino, Executive Director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll.

Good to see you, Dan.

- Hey, nice to speak with you.

Always a pleasure.

- You got it.

We're gonna put up the website for the poll.

Tell everyone what the poll is and what kind of issues and things you'll look at.

- Sure.

So the Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll, formally known as Public Mind, has been around for more than 20 years now, and we do public interest polling in New Jersey and nationwide.

We specialize in topics like masculinity, gambling, and conspiracy beliefs.

So aside from all that, we actually do a lot of polling here in New Jersey, and that's our big mission is that the politicians in New Jersey don't know what the public wants.

We know that from a lot of ways they behave and when we tell them what the public wants, they actually do respond.

We've seen that many ways in recent years and over the 20 years we've been doing this, that the politicians are desperate to know what the public wants.

It's our job to tell them that, and when we do, it works.

So when we call, pick up your phone, so we get a good sample, please.

- So, it's so interesting, Dan, you say the politicians need to know what people think.

I'm gonna get into a larger discussion with you about whether politicians are there to reflect the will of the people, even if they believe that the will of most people polled isn't the best public policy.

That's a question we'll get into, but as it relates to the November 7th legislative election, and we're taping this obviously after that, it'd be seen after that.

What were the polls telling you that the people, the people, most people, cared about and how did it manifest itself in the Democrats gaining more seats in the Senate and more seats in the lower house in the assembly, and gaining a much, really a virtually a super majority in both houses, which they haven't had in years.

- So we did see there were big opportunities for Republicans.

That's where our polling showed, is if voters had been thinking about their Republican issues like parental choice and parental controlled schools, then voters were willing to side with Republicans.

We saw huge shifts, especially among independents.

What the results tell us though, is that none of this matters, number one, if Republicans can't get their message out.

In New Jersey, it is hard to reach voters, especially in an off year election like this most recent one.

Most voters simply aren't paying very much attention.

In trying to get that message, or any message out to those voters is incredibly difficult.

Republicans weren't up to the task.

The other thing we saw is that partisanship dominates.

When people are looking at who they're gonna vote for, they are not thinking about the individual candidate on the ballot, for the most part.

They are thinking about partisanship.

Democrats vote for Democrats, Republicans vote for Republicans unless you give them a compelling reason to, otherwise.

And in most cases, outside of just a couple districts, nobody gave them a compelling reason to do that.

- And independents, people who are not registered as Democrats or Republicans disproportionately chose not to vote in an off-year legislative election.

Correct?

- Absolutely right.

Turnout was pretty good, but we're still in the upper twenties.

Voting is a habit.

If you vote once, you're likely to vote again, if you keep on voting, you're gonna vote in every election.

But independents, by and large aren't those habitual voters.

Why?

There's no reason to follow baseball if you don't have a favorite team.

If you don't care who wins, you don't like Republicans or Democrats, why would you pay attention to politics?

Especially now when the political arena is so toxic.

Lots of people are saying, "You know what, pox on their house I don't like any of these guys," and just turn it off.

- Okay, but Dan, here's what's interesting, really interesting to me.

You mentioned the issue of parental rights.

Now I'm a big fan of my area of research academically at a different institution, Rutgers back in the day, was in communication in media, meaning how you frame the question, often dictates the response you get.

Here's the question.

You mentioned parental choice, the question about parent, excuse me, parental notification about a child who may be expressing to a school administrator in a public school that he or she is, or they are confused about gender, that they identify in a certain way, and the question becomes, should parents know or not?

But how you frame that question, has an awful lot to do with the response you get.

How was that question framed?

So you found out what people thought about parental rights?

- Sure.

So the way we framed that question was by asking not about any one issue in particular.

We're actually trying to model it on the way Republicans are trying to frame the election.

We asked about how much control parents should have over what happens in schools: Little bit control, moderate control or complete control.

And we find is most people in New Jersey are right in the middle.

They say people, parents should have some control, but not too much control.

And what both party, political parties are trying to do is frame the other side as being the extremists.

Republicans saying, "Democrats don't want you to have any control in the schools."

Democrats saying, "Republicans want the craziest person on your school board to run everything."

And both sides are trying to frame the other one as being the extremist.

When in reality, most people in New Jersey, and actually I think most politicians in New Jersey are right there in the middle.

- You know, Dan, what I'm curious about in the graphic will come up democracy at a crossroads, excuse me.

It used to be called, democracy at a crossroads.

I asked our team to change it to "democracy in danger."

To what degree, based on the public not being engaged in the political process, and more importantly, issues and where candidates stand on issues.

Trust me, there's a question here.

And frankly, having low information about a lot of these issues and being turned off, you used that phrase before it turned off, "a pox on both of their houses".

What does that all mean for the future of representative democracy, Dan?

- Well, in New Jersey, we have a system that's designed to turn people off, to get people to not pay attention to the (indistinct), to not pay attention to the issues.

We have a very closed political system run large part by party bosses at the county and at the state level.

And that means voters aren't supposed to know.

Your job as a voter, as far as the both Republicans and Democrats are concerned, is to show up and push the right button, push the right line.

That is not the way representative democracy is supposed to work.

Now, there are upsides to that.

In New Jersey, we have a less toxic political process we do see in other places, we see that members of the state legislature, if they go too far the left or to the right, their party tends to kick 'em out.

And that's something that I called- - Hold on one second.

Is that what happened to state former, this'll air, he'll be in 2024, a former state senator, Ed Durr, truck driver Ed, who beat the Senate President Steve Sweeney in 2021, who when asked about abortion, I believe he said, and I don't think I'm paraphrasing if you, if I need to be correct, I will.

"If we want to talk about a woman not getting pregnant or preventing a pregnancy," she should quote, "keep her legs closed."

Did he actually say that, Dan?

- Yes, he did.

I think he said it before he was in office, but he certainly said it.

And what happened?

The state Republican party said, "You're the incumbent.

We're not gonna kick you off the ballot, but we're not gonna give you any money.

You're on your own.

You try and figure this out for yourself."

And, as a result, he's not in office anymore.

Sometimes even candidates that voters like, so Nia Gill, up here in North Jersey was well liked by constituents.

The Democratic Party got her out.

So she is no longer in the State House because she was upsetting the Democrats too much.

The Democrats and Republicans do everything they can to keep control, and that can be a good thing in terms of actually getting stuff done.

It's a bad thing in terms of democracy.

There's not a lot of choice.

- Before I let you go, how'd you become and why'd you become fascinated in polling?

- I'm a cognitive psychologist by training.

I study how people think about issues.

The problem is most congress psychologists just look at these sort of nebulous things.

How do you perceive color and stuff?

I actually love politics, so I wanted to look at something that has real world outcomes.

So I study how people think about politics.

There's no bigger arena to do it than with polling.

Also, we have a real world effect and that matters a lot.

- Dan Cassino is the Executive Director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll.

Dan, thanks for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- My pleasure.

- I'm Steve Adubado.

That's Dan Cassino.

We'll see you next time.

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