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Booker can be beaten

photo via facebook

photo via facebook

Senator Cory Booker’s support for reelection took a sharp drop since March, according to a Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll released this morning.

In the March Monmouth/APP poll, 55% of NJ voters said Booker deserves to be reelected.  Today, only 44% say the former Newark Mayor deserves his own six year term in Washington. Booker was elected last October to fill the remainder of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg’s term.  He faces off with Republican Jeff Bell in November.

Booker would beat Bell easily if the election where today, 43%-23%, but 15% say they would vote for a third party candidate and 17% are unsure. But the vast majority of voters, 82%, don’t know enough about Bell for express a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him.  The GOP nominee for U.S. Senate against Bill Bradley in 1978, Bell scored a surprise victory in the GOP primary for Senate last month. Of those who do know enough about Bell to express an opinion, the overwhelming impression, 2-1, is favorable.

Perhaps the worst indicator of support for Booker is his favorability rating.  While net positive by a significant 43%-14% margin, 43% said they have no opinion of Booker. That is a stunningly high number for a man who was elected to the U.S. Senate last fall, served as mayor of New Jersey’s largest city for over seven years, has over 1 million twitter followers and who has spent over $12 million on his reelection effort since the first of the year.

The best thing that Booker has going for him this year is that Governor Christie and the NJ Republican establishment Jeff Belldecided Booker could not be beaten and took a pass on the race, leaving the Republican nomination race to four unknown candidates who never held elected office. Bell prevailed by running the smartest campaign in which he largely ignored his opponents.  They in turn ignored him while beating each other up.  Bell delivered his message to the low turnout Republican primary voters.

Christie’s political energy will be spent outside of New Jersey this election, as he works to elect Republican Governors throughout the country as the Chairman of the Republican Governors Association.  But if New Jersey’s Republican County Chairmen, especially in Monmouth, Ocean and Morris counties, turnout their voters this November like they have the past two Novembers, Booker could be starting a new career as the male Oprah come January.

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Posted: July 2nd, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2014 Elections, 2014 U.S. Senate race, Cory Booker, Jeff Bell | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments »

5 Comments on “Booker can be beaten”

  1. Jim Granelli said at 9:57 am on July 2nd, 2014:

    This is why Lonegan should have stayed the course and not wandered over to a losing race in CD 3.

    He had the operation set up and was scoring points. And worse things about Booker came out after the election. I wish Jeff Bell well, but I suspect Lonegan might have had a better chance to pull it off this year.

  2. Bob English said at 10:32 am on July 2nd, 2014:

    Will be interesting what the R’s internal polling shows on this. I think their best chance of beating Booker was in the special election last year especially with a low turnout.

    It would take a ton of $$$ for Bell to run the kind of campaign he would need to even have a shot. If internal polling shows Bell 20 points behind, I can’t see them putting the $$$ into NJ.

    That’s always a catch 22 for challengers. You need big $$ to bump off an incumbent but its hard to get that $$$ if you are way behind in the polls.

  3. Rich Pezzullo said at 11:57 am on July 2nd, 2014:

    In this year we’re fighting a myth, not a man – and the myth is deflating It’s also a myth that it would take a “ton” of $$$ to defeat Booker. It takes votes on election day. Turning this into a weekly discussion about money instead of vetting the best candidate will ultimately yield the highest name recognition to the guy with most money rather than the best candidate. Bell is the only challenger in the NATIONAL field that is ready to go to work writing effective legislation. In the contest to see who has collected sufficient pertinent experience to manage the staffers who craft the complex legislation which ensnares all of us, the media fascination with dollars rather than competence is a dis – service to the electorate.

  4. And Obama will suddenly said at 4:29 pm on July 2nd, 2014:

    care about/ fix all his administration’s scandals, and the unemployment, and the kids who were kidnapped and killed, and our open borders, and the taxpayers who get to pay for his 17 trillion in debt, and unicorns will fly out of the sky, and the US will win a World Cup, etc, etc… Not happenin’, sorry!!

  5. Bob English said at 9:49 pm on July 2nd, 2014:

    Another reason Bell is going to need major $$$ is because most NJ voters under the age of 50 have never heard of him.