TRENTON, NJ – New Jersey residents are growing tired of Governor Phil Murphy, even after he narrowly won his bid for re-election last November.
For the first time in his tenure in office, Murphy’s approval rating has dipped below 50%.
According to a recent Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, about half of New Jerseyans (49 percent) continue to approve of the overall job Governor Phil Murphy is doing as he proceeds with his second term.
The poll found forty-six percent disapprove of his job performance; just 5 percent are unsure. Murphy’s job approval rating has essentially held steady from November 2021, with just a minor bit of movement.
“Murphy’s favorability, on the other hand, has taken a double-digit hit since his re-election: 33 percent now have a favorable impression of the governor (down from 50 percent in November 2021), while 38 percent have an unfavorable one. “This marks the first time since Governor Murphy took office that more New Jerseyans are unfavorable toward him than favorable,” said Ashley Koning, an assistant research professor and director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling (ECPIP) at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. “His current job approval and favorability numbers are reminiscent of the start of his first term, marking a clear end to his pandemic-induced ratings bump as both the state and politics attempt to return to some sort of normal.”
With the pandemic emergency powers behind him, Murphy’s Republican opponents and even some Democrats are now calling for open hearings on the governor’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes decisions to send infected senior citizens to nursing homes, prolonged business closures, and the longest mask mandate in the country, which expired last week.