Shaftan: Lonegan in Single Digit Range
Long-Time Lonegan Strategist, Pollster Sees Much Tighter U.S. Senate Race Than Public Survey Results Reflect
By Matt Rooney, SaveJersey.com
He’s one of most controversial figures in Garden State politics, Save Jerseyans, but in all candor, I always enjoy talking shop with Rick Shaftan.
For those who don’t know (maybe you’re tuning in for the first time this cycle), Rick Shaftan is a campaign strategist/pollster for Republican candidates across the country (and a couple Dems, including state Sen. Nick Sacco). His most famous client is Steve Lonegan, and their relationship goes back many years; Shaftan’s cameo in Anytown USA – a documentary following one of former Mayor Lonegan’s Bogota reelection campaigns – is well worth the watch.
I had a chance to catch up with Rick on the phone last night when he was in between an event and a campaign conference call (and I had just returned from a cocktail party and was settling down for a tedious evening of busy work and HBO GO viewing). His message to me concerning the 2013 U.S. Senate special election: don’t believe the public polls. “This is a single digit race,” Shaftan declared. Even his detractors who think Rick is crazy would never make the mistake of believing he’s stupid. I brought up the fact that conservatives (including yours truly) didn’t believe the 2012 public polling only to have those polls largely verified by the final result.
Rick Shaftan’s counter: 2013 isn’t 2012…
In short, Lonegan completely rejects the idea that Mayor Lonegan is trailing by large margins and that the nominee is underperforming with the GOP base; his argument is that the major public polls are failing to adequately screen for who is actually likely to show up at the polls to choose between Cory Booker (D-Twitter) and his candidate.
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Booker, Lonegan call each other ‘extreme’ during first U.S. Senate debate
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What can we learn from Booker-Lonegan primaries?
Rick Shaftan is the best and most accurate pollster operating in New Jersey – and beyond. He understands the importance of screening for likely voters and he knows how to do it. Don’t be too surprised if he turns out to be right. If anyone can pull this off it’s Lonegan and Shaftan.
Seeing as how he’s always been wrong before, I’ll be stunned if Shaftan is right this time.
But he isn’t: all Shaftan is doing is dispensing the opiate of false hope to remaining Loneganistas and doing everything in his power to rally a deeply fractured base, many of whom want nothing to do with a self-aggrandizing SOB.
Lonegan will be destroyed by Booker in the biggest landslide defeat in NJ electoral history. On October 16, Movement Conservatism will implode and Lonegan will fade into the oblivion he so richly deserves.
Wait. There’s someone running against Senator Booker?