New Jerseyans Struggle With Rising Gas Prices, Poll Finds

Gas at nearly $4 a gallon is hitting Jersey drivers harder than almost anything else right now, and a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll confirms what anyone who’s filled up recently already knows.

The survey, conducted March 27 through March 30 with 1,568 New Jersey adults, found that 59% of residents say they struggle to cover gasoline and transportation costs. That’s up from 54% in October. Every other spending category the poll tracked actually got a little better since fall. Gas got worse.

Ashley Koning, the director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, put it plainly. “New Jerseyans feel a slight relief on most everyday costs compared to last fall, but this relief does not extend to the gas pump,” she said. “The jump in reported difficulty in this area cuts across every demographic, forming a kind of rare consensus and showing just how acutely New Jerseyans are feeling the consequences of the current national conflict with Iran.”

That word, consensus, matters. Republicans, Democrats, suburban commuters, city residents. The gas pain is spread wide.

The rest of the numbers tell a cautiously better story, though not a good one. About 68% of voters said education costs, including student loans, are difficult to manage, down from 71% in October. Utility bills dropped from 71% to 63%. Housing difficulty slipped from 68% to 62%. Food and grocery costs fell from 68% to nearly 60%. Those are real improvements, but two-thirds of New Jerseyans still struggling with education costs is not a picture of a state that’s turned the corner.

And Koning flagged who’s still getting left behind even as the headline numbers edge down. “Even though some of these everyday affordability pressures have eased slightly across all New Jerseyans, the burden is still far greater for some more than others,” she told reporters. Nonwhite residents, lower-income households, and people without a four-year college degree consistently report more difficulty across all six spending categories the poll tracked. In several cases, those groups saw little to no improvement at all since October.

None of this is abstract for Trenton. Cost of living dominated last year’s gubernatorial race, and it helped carry Gov. Mikie Sherrill into office. The same poll puts her at a 45%-29% approval rating among New Jersey adults right now, which is a workable position early in a term, but those gas numbers are the kind of thing that can define a political environment fast.

The U.S.-Iran conflict is driving prices at the pump, and that’s a federal variable that Trenton can’t easily move. What Sherrill’s administration can move is how it responds to constituents who are already stretched thin on housing, groceries, and utilities on top of a rising gas bill. Candidates across the state are watching these numbers closely as they frame their own pitches on affordability.

The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. The sample came from a panel of randomly selected New Jerseyans who consented to participate.

Spring is here. The Shore season is coming. People need to drive. And right now, that drive costs more than it did six months ago.