Amid another push to allow casinos outside of Atlantic City, the latest results from the FDU Poll show that negative voter sentiment on the issue hasn’t budged in more than a decade. But while voters still oppose casino expansion, there’s strong support in favor of a proposed bill that would allow New Jersey residents to use small balcony solar panels to cut their electricity bills.

“People made up their minds about casino expansion a long time ago,” said Dan Cassino, a Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and the Executive Director of the FDU Poll. “Unless something dramatic happens, putting the issue in front of voters is going to lead to the same outcome as it did before.”

Currently, casino gambling in New Jersey is limited to Atlantic City, and changing that would require an amendment to the state constitution. Such amendments have to be passed by the state legislature in consecutive sessions, then approved by voters in a referendum; such a referendum could come to voters as early as November. The proposed casinos outside of Atlantic City would be at existing racetracks at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park, and would be expected to compete with new casinos being opened in New York. A previous referendum to expand casino gambling in New Jersey suffered a decisive defeat in 2016, with 77 percent opposed, and only 23 percent in favor.

The latest figures are almost identical to responses to the same question fielded by the FDU Poll as far back as 2014. Then, 42 percent of voters said that they supported casino expansion; in 2016, it was 41 percent. Today, support has ticked up to 44 percent, a statistically insignificant change. The percent opposed has stayed remarkably stable, at about 50 percent.

“The only thing that’s changed since last time this was tried is more casinos opening in New York,” said Cassino, the appropriately named pollster. “That matters a lot to the folks who want to open casinos, but it doesn’t seem to matter to the voters.”

Finding a substantial change in voter attitudes on casino expansion requires going back to March 2009. Seventeen years ago, 24 percent of voters in New Jersey were in favor of casino expansion, with 70 percent opposed.

As in past years, opposition to casino expansion is highest among older voters: 58 percent of voters 65 and older say that they oppose openings outside of Atlantic City, with only 38 percent in favor. Also opposed are the youngest voters, those 30 and under, who are the most likely to make use of betting apps. In that group, 45 percent are in favor of expansion, with 49 percent opposed.

“Older voters remember the commitment that casinos were only ever going to be in Atlantic City, and they’re holding the state to those promises,” said Cassino.

Within the legislature, opposition to casino expansion has been spearheaded by representatives of the areas around Atlantic City, who have argued that expansion would take away business from the existing casinos. Among voters, opposition to expansion is higher in those counties than in neighboring regions, with 43 percent approving, and 50 percent opposing. The highest level of opposition, though, comes from the area surrounding the Meadowlands, where one of the casinos would be located. Only 38 percent of residents in Bergen and Passaic counties say that they support casino expansion, with 56 percent opposed.

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Even as they reject casino expansion, New Jersey residents are in favor of a bill currently making its way through the legislature that would allow them to make use of plug-in solar panels, typically placed on balconies or porches. Seventy-eight percent of New Jersey voters support a law allowing such panels, with 19 percent opposed. Support is highest among Democratic voters – 86 percent – and lower among Republicans, at 68 percent.

“Among Republicans, there’s some suspicion of any clean energy initiative,” said Cassino. “But right now, voters like anything that’s going to bring down their electricity bills.”

The bill, Senate Bill 4786, would allow the use of the panels, which are widely available in parts of Europe, and retail for a few hundred dollars. Unlike roof-based solar panels, these systems do not require any professional installation and simply plug in to a normal household outlet. Other states, like Utah, have already passed laws allowing for such panels, pending safety approvals, but utility companies have argued against them, citing concerns about the safety of electrical line workers. A 2025 report prepared for the US Department of Energy study found no safety incidents in properly installed panels used outside of the US.

Methodology

The FDU Poll is a proud member of the AAPOR Transparency Initiative and is devoted to ensuring that our results are presented in such a way that anyone can quickly and easily get all of the information that they may need to evaluate the validity of our surveys. We believe that transparency is the key to building trust in the work of high-quality public opinion research, and necessary to push our industry forward.

The survey was conducted between March 20 and 28, 2026, using a voter list of registered voters in New Jersey carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Respondents were contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 805 registered voters in the state. Surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews to landlines (127) and cellphones (275) and the remainder (404) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of registered voters in New Jersey. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education, region and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.2, largely driven by the weights used on the race/ethnicity variable.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 805 registered voters is +/-3.4 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-3.9 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

805 Registered Voters in New Jersey

Figures do not include individuals who declined to answer demographic items.

Man                                 47%                 N = 376
Woman                            52%                 N = 417
Some Other Way           1%                  N = 5

18-30                           15%                N = 119
31-44                           22%                 N = 175
45-64                           33%                 N = 266
65+                               30%                 N = 243

White                                            65%                N = 523
Black                                            14%                N = 113
Hispanic/Latino/a                         12%                N = 97
Asian                                        4%                  N = 32
MENA                                       1%                  N = 10
Other/Multi-racial                            2%                  N = 18

No college degree                       57%                 N = 459
College degree or more              42%                N = 337

Democrat (including leaners)     48%                N = 355
Independent (no lean)                15%                N = 113
Republican (including leaners)   37%                N = 271

Question Wording and Order

First off, we’d like to ask you a few questions about government here in New Jersey.

NJ1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Mikie Sherrill is handling her job as governor?

1. Approve
2. Disapprove
3. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

NJ2. Already, the governor has come into conflict with President Trump. When there is a conflict, what do you think the governor should do? Should she try and work with President Trump, or should she use lawsuits and other means to defy him?

1. Work with him
2. Defy him
3. It depends or similar [Vol]
4. Don’t Know
5. Refused

B1. In order to balance the budget, the state of New Jersey is going to have to either cut spending, increase taxes, or both. I’m going to list some proposals that could cut spending or increase revenue for the state. Which of the following proposals to help balance the budget would you support? You can say “yes” to as many as you like.

1. Not make a full payment to teacher’s pension plans
2. Reduce support for public colleges and universities
3. Reduce the property tax rebates received by seniors in the state
4. Reduce state support for local schools
5. Cut state funding for the Rutgers football team
6. Reduce funding for NJ Transit
7. Charge a fee to businesses who have employees that get healthcare from the state

1. Support/Yes
2. Oppose/No
3. Don’t Know
4. Refused

There are also a number of other important issues facing the state.

NJ3. Right now, casino gambling in New Jersey is limited to Atlantic City. Do you favor or oppose [rotate] expanding casino gambling to other areas in the state?

1. Favor
2. Oppose
3. [DK /REF]

E1. In recent years, New Jersey has generated less electrical power than it uses, meaning that New Jersey power companies have to buy power generated in other states. At the same time, new data centers, many used for what are sometimes called Artificial Intelligence systems, are coming online. These data centers are thought to be vital to the future economic growth of the state. That combination of lower supply and higher demand has meant higher electricity bills for people in New Jersey. What, if anything, do you think we should do about it? You can say yes or no to as many options as you like.

[Yes/No/ Don’t Know for each]

1. Ban the construction of new data centers, until more power plants can be built?
2. Build new natural gas power plants, which can come online faster than other types of power?
3. Build more nuclear power plants, which give reliable power, but may take years to come online?
4. Build more renewable power plants, like wind and solar farms, which provide clean energy, but will take years to come online?

1. Support/Yes
2. Oppose/No
3. Don’t Know
4. Refused

Intervening Questions Held for Later Release

NJ6. Outside of the US, many people make use of solar panels made for balconies that sell for a few hundred dollars, plug directly into a wall socket in your house, and don’t need to be installed by an electrician. These panels typically aren’t enough to power a home, but can cut electricity bills. Would you favor or oppose a law that would allow people in New Jersey to use these panels to generate electricity?

1. Favor changing the law to allow people to use these panels
2. Oppose changing the law to allow these panels
3. Don’t Know
4. Refused

Release Tables