In Jersey, we pump fists, not gas. Fourteen years after the last time New Jersey voters were asked the question, nothing has changed.
A new Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that 64% of New Jersey voters want to keep the state’s full-service gas mandate—the last one standing in the entire country. Only 24% want to switch to self-service, joining the other 49 states.
The numbers are almost eerily consistent with the past. When FDU asked the same question back in 2012, 63% of voters wanted to keep full service, with 23% in favor of pumping their own gas. In other words: New Jersey hasn’t budged on the topic in over a decade. Staying in the comfort of our car while filling up is just a part of Jersey culture.
“At a time when everything seems unstable, it’s good to know that there are some things that just don’t change,” said Dan Cassino, executive director of the FDU Poll. “New Jersey voters have never wanted to pump their own gas, and they still don’t want to pump their own gas.”
The breakdown by gender tells its own story. 74% of women support full service far, compared to 56% of men—notably, still a majority. Cassino offered a theory for the gap. “In the past, full-service gas has been seen as a safety measure for women,” he said. “But the gap between men and women could also just be men saying that they like doing things with their cars.”
Age produced a genuinely surprising result. You might expect younger voters, raised in a world of self-checkout and app-based everything, to be the ones pushing for self-service. Instead, it’s the opposite: 68% of voters 30 and under want to keep full service, compared to 61% of seniors 65 and older. Younger voters, it turns out, are the biggest defenders of New Jersey’s gas station tradition.
Political affiliation played a role too, though Cassino noted it appears to be driven more by the demographic makeup of each party than by ideology itself. Democrats were more supportive of the current system than Republicans, but that gap likely reflects the age and gender composition of each party rather than any real partisan divide over gas pumps.
Whatever the exact reasons, the takeaway is simple. New Jersey has had 14 years and national pressure ever since Oregon ended its ban on self-serve gas in 2023. Still, the Garden State hasn’t budged.
Pumping your own gas in New Jersey remains, as it has always been, someone else’s job.
Tom is a lifelong New Jersey resident, Rutgers and FDU alumni and the publisher of The Digest.
