An earthquake measuring 2.4 on the Richter Scale shook the northeast corner of New Jersey early Friday afternoon. Yet it’s the Emerson College/PIX11/The Hill poll released 24 hours earlier sent the more newsworthy shockwaves across the entire state — and beyond.

New Jersey is one of two states choosing a governor in November. Their off-year election, along with Virginia’s, is considered a bellwether for the party in the White House and — after tectonic shifts in the political landscape — the Garden State is trending in President Trump’s direction.

Two months after President Reagan took office in 1981, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Berkeley Breathed drew an installment of his comic strip, “Bloom County.” It featured a husband telling his wife, “Brace yourself, Bess,” before a loud rumble shakes their house.

“Yep,” he says. “The country just moved to the right again.”

Bess decided to “tie down all the china,” and Emerson found that Democrats might want to do the same. Trump’s approval rating in the state is higher than that of Governor Murphy, a Democrat. Mr. Murphy is term-limited, meaning the White House bully pulpit won’t have to compete with an incumbent on the ballot. 

Of the 1,000 registered voters Emerson surveyed, 48 percent viewed President Trump favorably, besting Mr. Murphy’s 44 percent. Mr. Trump’s unfavorable tally was 46 percent versus 42 percent for the governor. Given the poll’s three-point margin of error, only the president could claim statistically significant approval.

Mr. Trump is already focusing on New Jersey, issuing an executive order halting wind farms off its coast. A pet project of Mr. Murphy, they’re unpopular along the Jersey Shore, plagued with problems, and a priority for just 24 percent in the state according to a Stockton University poll in October.

Owner of a golf club at Bedminster, New Jersey, Mr. Trump has improved his showing in the state each time he’s run. He lost by 16 percent in 2016, 14 percent in 2020, and just under six percent last year, when he grew his support in all 11 counties. 

Mr. Trump came closer to winning New Jersey than any GOP candidate since President George H. W. Bush, who lost by 2.4 points in 1992’s three-way race. New Jersey last went Republican, for Bush, in 1988. Previewing his reelection loss, Democrats claimed the governorship the following year.

In 2021, the bellwethers tolled for Mr. Biden. Republicans stormed to a win with Mr. Youngkin in Virginia while in New Jersey, Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, made Democrats sweat. He lost in a squeaker by 84,000 voters or 3.22 percent. 

Emerson found that Mr. Ciattarelli enjoys 26 percent support from GOP primary voters for a second nomination, twice his nearest competitor. On the other side, Democrats are divided on Mr. Murphy’s successor. Of six candidates, five were in a statistical tie and none commanded more than 10 percent support. 

Fifty-six percent of Democratic primary voters are undecided, foreshadowing a bloody primary fight. Expect that to help Mr. Ciattarelli who, if he gets his second shot, will do so with a larger base. Republicans, according to the state, registered twice as many voters as Democrats last year.

New Jersey Democrats enjoyed a one-million voter edge over Republicans when Mr. Biden took office, but that advantage has dropped below 900,000. The New Jersey Globe’s editor-in-chief, David Wildstein, reported earlier this month that the state has gained 184,026 Republicans since January 2021 against just nine new Democrats.

Mr. Biden drove more New Jerseyans to the Republicans than to Democrats every month of his presidency. By Election Day, Mr. Trump will have been in office for ten months. He has that long to implement policies that turn around the Garden State’s grim view of economic conditions.

Sixty-three percent of voters in New Jersey, Emerson wrote of their poll, “feel their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living and 23 percent are just keeping pace. Voters are split, 50 percent saying the state is on the wrong track and 50 percent saying it’s on the right one.

How New Jersey’s Republican candidate for governor fares will be a bellwether of Mr. Trump’s success in turning those numbers around and tell Democrats if they have sure footing going into next year’s midterms, or if it’s time to tie down the china before the ground again rumbles rightward.