Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama won’t be on the ballot in New Jersey and Virginia when those states hold the nation’s only governor’s races in November. His policies likely will be.

The elections offer a test of whether the electricity Obama generated with voters during his campaign will power other Democrats.

Obama has been campaigning for both Governor Jon Corzine, 62, of New Jersey and Creigh Deeds, 51, a state senator running for governor in Virginia. The president’s push for health-care legislation and unprecedented federal spending on the worst financial crisis in 70 years has created headaches for his fellow Democrats, who both trail their opponents in the polls.

“The political bounce on everything that’s happened this summer has made people much more cautious, much more conservative and fearful of change,” said Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Support for Obama and his policies has eroded over the summer. The percentage of Americans who disapprove of his handling of health care has jumped to 50 percent from 29 percent in April, an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted Aug. 13 to 17 found.

Poor Proxies

While the results of these two races will be read as a referendum on Obama, outcomes in off-year elections have proven to be poor proxies for national trends. Virginia has held off- year elections since 1851, New Jersey began in 1847.

Since 1977, Virginians have elected only governors representing the party not occupying the White House. In the 11 races since 1965, there have only been two contests -- in 1993 and 2005 -- where the results presaged the midterm outcomes the next year.

“There’s going to be that tendency to mix up a referendum on what’s happening now to what’s going to happen a year from now,” said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report in Washington.

In New Jersey, Corzine’s woes owe largely to state- specific issues like higher property taxes, failing schools, crumbling roads and corruption, said Baker.

“These are perennial problems,” he said. Republican challenger Christopher Christie, 46, a former U.S. attorney, blames Corzine for the state’s financial woes that Corzine says are part of a national downturn.

Virginia Contest

In Virginia, Deeds trails former Attorney General Bob McDonnell, 55, the Republican nominee, in statewide polls, and hasn’t stirred enthusiasm among African-American voters, a core part of the Democratic voter base.

Analysts say both races could change quickly based on developments unrelated to national issues. For instance, McDonnell may be hurt by disclosures Aug. 30 in the Washington Post that his master’s thesis published in 1989 described working women as “detrimental” to family, and was critical of women’s rights, including equal pay and contraception.

Of the two races, the results in Virginia are more likely to telegraph national sentiment, said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. There are “two relatively little-known candidates who are bland moderates, and that encourages the message-sending of voting.”

New Jersey is more likely to be a referendum on the incumbent Corzine, Sabato said.

A Quinnipiac University Poll released Tuesday found 60 percent of New Jersey voters disapprove of Corzine’s job performance. Corzine is 10 percentage points behind Christie in the poll, conducted Aug. 25 to 30.

Financial Acumen

Corzine, co-chairman of New York-based Goldman, Sachs & Co. from 1994 to 1999, promised in his 2005 campaign to use his financial acumen to right the state’s finances.

Moody’s Investor’s Service on Aug. 4 cut its outlook on $31 billion in New Jersey debt to negative from stable, after the recession hurt revenue and prompted Corzine’s administration to deplete its reserves.

A corruption scandal that led to the arrests of 44 people, many of them Democrats, has also become an issue. Fifty percent of New Jersey voters associate Democrats more with corruption, while 16 percent identify Republicans, the Quinnipiac Poll found.

Still, New Jersey voters haven’t elected a Republican since Christine Todd Whitman in 1997, and Democrats also hold a 650,000-vote registration advantage. Only two incumbent New Jersey governors have lost since 1947. Both had legislatures where control was divided between the two parties.

Independents

In Virginia, the Obama effect is hurting Deeds among independents. A Washington Post poll conducted Aug. 11 to 14 gives McDonnell a 54 to 39 percent lead over Deeds. In June a Survey USA poll gave McDonnell just a four-point edge.

Deeds campaign manager Joe Abbey said independents are switching in part because they are unhappy with Obama’s policies on health care and spending.

“It’s rough,” Abbey said. “The White House has been very engaged since the second he became the nominee,” Abbey said. “Clearly they understand how to win in Virginia, but it’s a little different” this year because of the shift in independent support.

State finances aren’t a major issue in the Virginia race because the state is one of six with top, or AAA ratings, from Moody’s Investor’s Service and Standard and Poor’s.

Now it is McDonnell who is on the defensive over his 20- year-old master’s thesis.

In an Aug. 31 conference call with reporters, McDonnell said his views as “an academic graduate student are much different than my views as attorney general and candidate for governor.”

Susan Tolchin, a public policy professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, said the information will “have a profound effect” on women in the voting booth.

To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Washington at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 2, 2009 11:20 EDT