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PARAMUS, N.J. (AP) -- It sounds like another New Jersey joke. Except it's not funny if you actually live here.

For the privilege of living in perhaps the nation's most-maligned state, New Jerseyans pay the highest property taxes in America.

That overriding issue -- not President Barack Obama, health care or the economy -- could cost Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine his job on Election Day.

The former Wall Street whiz, who has failed to solve the Garden State's tax woes amid a deep economic decline, is locked in a tight race with Republican Chris Christie, a corruption-busting former federal prosecutor whose main appeal appears to be that he isn't Corzine.

A moderate independent in the race, Chris Daggett, a former state and federal environmental official, has surprised the political establishment by becoming a factor -- and maybe a spoiler -- partly because of his plan to reduce property taxes by 25 percent.

New Jersey's crushing tax burden is blamed largely on its profusion of hundreds of cities, towns, townships, boroughs and school districts, all with their own bureaucracies, overlapping authority and duplicated services.

Last year, the average bill for a homeowner was more than $7,000 -- about twice the national average and 71 percent more than a decade earlier. It's a bill homeowners have to pay whether they get a big raise, a pink slip or a fixed pension.

"It just keeps going up," lamented Tim Nowakowski, a 52-year-old kitchen designer from Shamong who pays about $8,000 in property taxes. "Nothing goes down."

Jerry Rickleman, 46, of Paramus, said his mother and mother-in-law are both in their 80s and their property tax bills make it difficult to make ends meet. "They're both drowning here," he said.

All 21 New Jersey counties are among the 100 in the country with the highest average property tax bill. Property taxes account for more than 40 cents of every dollar New Jersey's state and local governments collect in taxes.

A Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll released Sunday shows Corzine and Christie about even, with the governor getting 42 percent of support among likely voters surveyed while Christie received 43 percent. In the last Monmouth/Gannett poll issued two weeks ago, the two were tied at 39 percent. The telephone poll of 1,041, taken Oct. 28-20, had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs CEO, has been criticized for handling the state's economic mess by striking a deal not to lay off state workers and for rolling back rebates on property taxes. He's spent more than $20 million of his own money on his campaign, most notably drawing attention for a commercial that appears to poke fun at the weight of the corpulent Christie.

Confronted with a recession, Corzine fell short on his campaign promise of four years ago to give homeowners major relief from property taxes. He also boosted taxes on cigarettes and liquor, along with the income tax for those making more than $400,000.

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