Reuters
November 2, 2009 - 12:00 a.m. EST

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) - An independent candidate stressing New Jersey's economic woes is attracting surprising voter support in the governor's race, which features an unpopular Democratic incumbent and a Republican challenger with ties to former President George W. Bush.

The independent is Chris Daggett, a former federal environmental official. Although he is not expected to win Tuesday's election for governor in New Jersey, which backed President Barack Obama in 2008, he could affect who does.

Daggett, at a campaign appearance this week, said he has found unhappy voters across New Jersey, the nation's most densely populated state where most residents live in the metropolitan areas of neighboring New York and Philadelphia.

"It's a lousy economy. It's a stimulus package that hasn't stimulated. It is jobs that are lost. It is homes foreclosed," Daggett told Reuters. "It's all added up to this anger that is really widespread and, I think, national in scope."

Governor Jon Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs chief executive, is running for a second term and only last week pulled ahead in polls against Republican Chris Christie, a former U.S. Attorney appointed by Bush.

In his third campaign visit to New Jersey on Corzine's behalf, Obama on Sunday talked about the importance of creating more jobs as the U.S. economy begins to turn around.

Obama told a crowd in Camden that Corzine was "not going to rest until not only is Wall Street doing well, but Main Street is doing well, and businesses are hiring again."

Daggett is seen as draining votes from the Republican side, but a large chunk of his supporters have indicated they could change their minds by Tuesday's Election Day. He is faring better than expected, but support has declined somewhat since he polled a high of 20 percent.

"As an independent, Daggett doesn't have some of the baggage that being a Democrat or being a Republican has," said Joseph Marbach, a political science professor and dean of New Jersey's Seton Hall University.

"On the national level you have sharp and divided partisanship, particularly over stimulus issues or healthcare issues and now foreign affairs," he said. "Daggett represents a change from that."

Independents seldom poll as well as Daggett has, said Douglas Muzzio, a public affairs professor at Baruch College in New York. "He's tapped into some anger, some fear, some distrust but overall a dissatisfaction with the incumbent and his Republican challenger," Muzzio said.

Quinnipiac University's poll of likely voters from October 20-26 showed Corzine leading Christie at 43 to 38 percent, with Daggett at 13 percent. The poll of 1,267 likely voters had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

NOT A REFERENDUM ON OBAMA

The race has been particularly negative, with candidates trading nasty barbs over perceived ethical lapses and poor driving records. One Corzine ad pokes fun at Christie's weight.

What the race is not, however, is a referendum on the Obama administration, observers say in near unison. Next year, 37 states will elect governors and voters will elect all of the U.S. House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate.

The New Jersey race is centered on local issues, namely property taxes, and the record of an incumbent, none of which reflects what Obama is doing on the national stage, they say.

The other U.S. statewide race this year, for the governor's job in Virginia, is more of a referendum on Obama, given that there is no incumbent and the issues more closely resemble national concerns, experts note.

"There is only one issue in New Jersey, and has been for years, and that is real estate taxes," said Maurice Carroll, a pollster at Quinnipiac University. "This is not a referendum on Obama."

Daggett concurred, saying: "There's all kinds of talk nationally about some sort of a bellwether test for the president but I don't believe that," he said.

The Corzine camp nevertheless hopes to tap into Democratic support that helped elect Obama. A Corzine vote sends a message of support to the president, the governor has said.

"Corzine is unpopular with his own party," said Ben Dworkin, political scientist at New Jersey's Rider University. "That's why he's been tying himself to the hip of the president, in an effort to try and get as many Democrats to support him even if they don't like him."

Corzine, who funds his campaigns with his personal wealth, has taken heat for the state's fiscal woes and high property taxes. Critics of Christie, meanwhile, argue he used his job as the state's top prosecutor for partisan purposes.

(Additional reporting by Corbett Daly; Editing by Jackie Frank and Cynthia Osterman)