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As Election Day nears, the candidates for governor have reached out to Jewish voters throughout the state in a race that all polls suggest is effectively tied between Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican challenger Chris Christie, the former U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

According to Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, there are enough Jewish voters in New Jersey to potentially make a difference in the upcoming election.

“The race is so close, that any community, any organized group, any constituency can have a disproportionate impact,” he said. “The margin of victory can be determined by a community like the Jewish community.”

A 2001 survey by the United Jewish Communities put the state’s Jewish population at 358,000, with an adult population of 257,000. The most recent estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau put the state’s overall population at over 8.6 million.

While the exact number of Jewish voters in the New Jersey cannot be ascertained, nationwide Jews vote for Democratic presidential candidates approximately 75 percent of the time, Dworkin said.

In order to reach out to this constituency, the candidates have held meetings with Jewish organizations and events at synagogues throughout the state.

Among those organizations both campaigns have met with is the New Jersey State Association of Jewish Federations, which represents 12 federations across the state.

Jacob Toporek, the executive director of the association, said that while most Jewish voters in the state will ultimately vote on pocketbook issues like other New Jersey voters, there are some shared concerns among the state’s Jewish community including communal security, freedom of religious practice, reaching out to the needy, and quality of education, whether for public or private schools.

However, Toporek said that while there were some issues of shared concern among the Jewish community, “when it comes to the state, I wouldn’t say there’s a specific Jewish issue.”

On Monday, Oct. 19, state Sen. Lorretta Weinberg, Corzine’s designated candidate for lieutenant governor, met with representatives of the State Association at the law firm of Wilentz, Goldman, and Spitzer in Woodbridge.

“It was like having a conversation with your next door neighbor,” said Toporek, describing the atmosphere of the meeting. According to Toporek, Weinberg reiterated positions that Corzine had previously articulated regarding senior services and transportation, which are among the major priorities of the association.

Another issue that was discussed was the recent anti-Semitism incidences throughout the state over the past several weeks and a question about energy was also raised, according to Toporek.

The group previously met with Christie on Sept. 23, which Toporek described as “a very positive meeting.”

According to Toporek, the meeting also focused on social services and transportation for senior citizens.

Funding for services for elderly residents “allows seniors to live their lives with dignity and feel secure,” he said.

The focus on senior citizens by the federations is hardly surprising given the relatively high percentage of Jews, especially in central New Jersey, who are in the older age bracket.

A 2009 demographic study by the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, for example, shows that 38 percent of the Jewish population is over the age of 65. In comparison, the percentage of Middlesex residents overall who are over the age of 65 was 12 percent as of 2007.

The campaigns’ efforts to reach out to the state’s Jewish community made sense given how competitive the race is, Toporek said.

“Of course Corzine wants to maintain support among the Jewish community that he feels he has and has earned over the years,” Toporek said. “Christie, too, is still trying to reach to people within the Jewish community who support him and those who are undecided and who could go to his side.”

Though the N.J. State Association of Jewish Federations does not endorse candidates, Toporek said that they can still have an impact on the election and eventually policy.

“What we can do is bring community concerns to candidates and be confident that they know of our concerns,” he said. In the course of the campaign, Christie and Corzine have also met with representatives from the Orthodox community.

Howard Beigelman, the Orthodox Union’s deputy director of public policy and the organizer of meetings with Christie and Corzine, described the Oct. 12 meeting with Corzine at the Gateway Center in Newark as respectful and honest.

“He didn’t play to us and we didn’t play to him,” Beigelman told The Jewish State.

Beigelman said that the organization was pleased with the governor’s passage of religious accommodation laws while in office, though he said there was divergence over the issue of day school funding.

“The bulk of the conversation was about Jewish day school tuition, which is the No. 1 issue in the Orthodox community,” Beigelman said.

Though there was a disagreement over the issue of direct assistance for day schools, Beigelman said that the governor was open to other ways of providing assistance to these schools, including paying for security services, increasing special education funding, and restoring a tax amnesty program.

In an earlier meeting with Christie on Aug. 3 at Congregation Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David in West Orange, Beigelman said that the issue of school funding was discussed less, as the candidate had already suggested that he was supportive of tax credits for day schools.

One of the major issues discussed was the issue of Jewish communal security and Christie’s experience dealing with homeland security as a former federal prosecutor.

“He mentioned several times that he was the first post 9/11 U.S. attorney for New Jersey,” Beigelman recalled.

No organization or group, however, can claim to represent all Jewish voters in the state, according to Dworkin.

“Within different segments of the organized Jewish community, there are different agenda items,” he said. “There is no catch-all issue.”

Dworkin explained that ultimately Jewish voters in the state care about the same issues that the rest of the state is focused on.

“The Jewish community is fully integrated into the state and has the same concerns as all other New Jerseyans,” he said.