New Jersey voters are concerned about high energy costs, and a recent poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) shows that proposed solutions to address these costs are largely divided along party lines.
The FDU Poll surveyed 814 likely registered voters in New Jersey between October 9 and 15, 2025. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points at a 95% confidence interval.
Participants were asked their opinions on six potential policies to reduce energy bills: requiring data centers to pay more for electricity, building more natural gas plants, imposing tighter regulations on power producers and distributors, constructing additional nuclear power plants, expanding renewable energy capacity including offshore wind, and placing restrictions on new AI data center construction.
The most popular measure was requiring data centers to pay higher rates for their electricity use. This option received support from 68% of respondents overall—77% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans.
Building more natural gas plants also had significant backing with 67% overall support. However, this issue showed a strong partisan divide: while 90% of Republicans supported it, only 48% of Democrats did.
Expanding renewable energy facilities such as offshore wind projects was supported by 54% of voters overall. Here too, there was polarization: just 14% of Republicans favored more renewables compared to 88% of Democrats.
“Whatever the merits of natural gas or renewables, they’ve become subsumed by partisanship,” said Dan Cassino, Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University and Executive Director of the FDU Poll. “As much as people want to bring down their energy bills, they’re still putting politics first.”
Tighter regulation of power producers and distributors attracted majority support from all voters (61%), but again with differences between parties—79% among Democrats versus 41% among Republicans.
When asked about nuclear power—which currently supplies about half the state’s electricity—58% expressed support for building more nuclear plants. Republican support stood at 77%, while Democratic support was at 41%. Younger voters were more likely than older ones to favor this option.
The least popular proposal was restricting construction of new AI data centers; only 43% backed this idea overall (50% among Democrats and 31% among Republicans).
“Restrictions on data centers raise the specter of a conflict between economic development and the environment,” said Cassino. “Asking the state to forego new investment to keep down electricity costs seems like it’s a bridge too far for many voters on both sides of the aisle.”
Voters supporting each major gubernatorial candidate also differed in their preferred approaches. Among those who plan to vote for Democrat Mikie Sherrill, developing renewable energy was most favored (88%), followed by tighter regulations on utilities and higher charges for data centers (about 80%). For Republican Jack Ciattarelli’s supporters, building more natural gas plants led with approval from 91%, followed by building additional nuclear plants (80%).
“The good news is that there (are) energy policies that get strong approval across the board,” said Cassino. “The bad news is that the most popular options among Sherrill or Ciattarelli supporters also face entrenched opposition from the other party.”
