Christie Surging in New Jersey

Despite Barack Obama having virtually moved into New Jersey with repeated campaign stops for Jon Corzine, GOP challenger Chris Christie has opened a six-point lead heading into tomorrow's gubernatorial election, according to the latest PPP pol.

Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine 47-41 in PPP's final poll of the New Jersey Governor's race, with Chris Daggett at 11%.

Corzine had pulled to within a point of Christie on our poll three weeks ago after trailing by as many as 14 points over the summer, but his momentum has stalled since then and Christie's built his lead back up to 4 points last week and now 6.

Christie's advantage is due largely to his support from independents and because he has Republicans more unified around him than the Democrats are around Corzine. Christie leads Corzine 52-29 with indies, as Daggett's support with that group has declined to 16%. Christie is getting 82% of Republicans to Corzine's 72% of Democrats.

As the campaign concludes it seems like Daggett's presence in the race has actually ended up hurting Corzine more than Christie, contrary to the earlier conventional wisdom. 45% of Daggett voters say the incumbent is their second choice to 36% for the challenger. Daggett's backers report having voted for Barack Obama by a 67-23 margin last year.

On Sunday Obama made two appearances to try and prop up Corzine. Naturally the two of them accepted zero responsibility for anything.

Obama said the financial state of New Jersey was not Corzine's fault, saying it "didn't start under Jon's watch."

"I have something to report: We have the worst financial crisis since the great depression," he said. "By the way that didn't start under Jon's watch. That didn't start on my watch. I wasn't sworn in yet. We got a little bit of revisionist history, a little selective memory going on, a little amnesia about how we got into this mess."

Obama's amnesia apparently blocks out the fact Corzine has been governor for four years. The last time a Republican was governor in New Jersey was in 2001. I don't think it was George W. Bush who gave us the highest property taxes in the nation. Obama also rehashed his "mop" routine.

"If I got the mop and I'm cleaning up after that mess," he said, "the least these other folks can do is not stand there and say, 'You're not holding the mop the right way. You're not mopping fast enough. You're using a socialist mop.' Let me tell you something, just pick up a mop. Let's help clean up this country and make it work for ordinary people here in New Jersey."

He's going to need a bigger mop to clean up the mess Democrats will be in after Tuesday night.

The RCP average this morning has Christie up by of 1.2 points.

Corzine, for his part, played the Joe Wilson card.

Corzine tried to create a deep divide between himself and Christie, saying the Republican was campaigning with "extremist" U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)

"That's the South Carolina extremist who interrupted our president when he was talking about health care," he said. "That tells you all you need to know about where that candidate is, and where we are on this side of the aisle."

As Wilson might say, You Lie! Wilson was in New Jersey but did not appear with Christie, as Corzine asserted. But hey, when you're desperate, we expect you to just make things up.