Ben Dworkin, Director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, introduces U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan. September 24, 2013
I don’t think Steve Lonegan and Rick Shaftan are stupid.
I don’t think they believed their own bs over the years that a “true conservative” could win a statewide election in New Jersey, if only given a chance.
Surprisingly to many, Lonegan’s campaign since August was working. He substantially narrowed the gap between himself and Cory Booker. He unquestionably weakened the electorate’s perception of Booker. Lonegan never moderated his message, but he significantly moderated his delivery and demeanor. He was not a scary angry conservative.
The Lonegan I witnessed at Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics last month was not a flame thrower. He was an honest and concerned adult sharing his wisdom with college students.
I never got to the point where I thought Lonegan would win next week. I did think that if he got into single digits, he would be the front runner for a rematch with Booker in 2014. I thought, if he kept doing what he was doing, in the style he was doing it, his best shot at beating Booker was in November of 2014.
I don’t think that anymore. With tonight’s debate performance, combined with scheduled appearances with Sarah Palin and Mark Levin this weekend, I think Lonegan and Shaftan concluded they aren’t going to win, so they might as well have fun for the last week of Lonegan’s political career.
Cory Booker came to the second and final Senatorial debate prepared to portray Steve Lonegan as a Tea Party extremist, and Lonegan cooperated.
Lonegan came prepared with facts and punchlines. Booker turned nearly every question into an opportunity to portray himself as a compromiser who will go to Washington to get things done and Lonegan as an extremist.
Early on in this campaign, Lonegan acknowledged he “lacked a filter” between what he really thinks and what he says. He seems to have developed a filter over the last several weeks, but he left it at home tonight.
Lonegan’s hardest punchlines are likely to be used against him over the the final week of the campaign. “You might not be able to swim in that river, but its probably because of all the bodies in it from shooting victims” and “you’ll abort a baby in its 8th month of delivery,” will very likely be used relentlessly by the Booker campaign and they ramp up their Get Out The Vote machine in the coming week.
With more substantive answers, Lonegan probably won on debating points. But debating points don’t win elections. Both candidates were on message and their message was the same…Steve Lonegan is an antagonistic extremist. At least he was tonight.
If the Lonegan/Shaftan strategy was to gin up their base, I’m sure it worked. But it probably turned off moderate voters who were leaning towards coming out for Lonegan. Booker’s money will make sure Lonegan rhetoric gins up his base in the coming week.
Sarah Palin and Mark Levin are coming to New Jersey to campaign for Lonegan at a Tea Party event in New Egypt on Saturday. If you’re willing to bet on that as a winning strategy for a New Jersey election, you’re probably also willing to bet that the 0-5 Giants will have home field advantage at the Super Bowl in February.
If I were betting on the next Wednesday’s election, I’d take Booker and give 18 points.
The second and final debate between Newark Mayor Steve Lonegan and former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, the major party candidates to complete the term of the late U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, will take place this evening at 7PM.
The debate will be broadcast on NBC-TV, channel 4 in the New York market, channel 10 in the Philadelphia market, and livestreamed at nbcphiladelphia.com
GOP nominee for U.S. Senate Steve Lonegan is leading Democratic nominee Cory Booker among Independent voters, 50%-44%, and Republicans, 87%-10%, but women in all demographics are breaking strongly for Booker, 62%-31%, giving the Newark mayor an overall 12 point lead, 53%-41%, in the race to be New Jersey’s next U.S. Senator, according to a Quinnipiac poll of likely released this morning.
Booker’s lead is unchanged since a September 24 Quinnipiac poll that energized Lonegan supporters. The 12 point lead in September revealed the race to be a lot closer the 30%+ margins most were expecting for Booker.
The poll of 899 likely voters was conducted between October 5 and 7. If the Senatorial debate between the candidates moved the needle either way, it is not likely to be reflected in these numbers. The debate was held on the fourth, but not broadcast until the 6th.
There is some indication that Quinnipiac may be over weighting Democrats or under weighting Independents in their turnout assumptions. The poll indicates that NJ voters favor ObamaCare by a 51%-44% margin. Yet Independents oppose ObamaCare by 56%-38%. Democrats support ObamaCare, 92%-4%. Republicans oppose it 87%-8%. Lonegan has been campaigning against ObamaCare as strongly as he has been attacking Booker’s record in Newark.
In a general election, Independents are usually the largest percentage of voters. With Independents breaking for Lonegan and against ObamaCare, it is surprising that Democratic voters are predicted to carry the day. But nobody knows who will turnout for a Special Election on the third Wednesday in October.
Quinnipiac’s assumptions could be on the money. Democratic turnout in the August 13 primary was higher than expected by most.
The Lonegan campaign continues to believe the race is within three points. Strategist/pollster Rich Shaftan, who celebrated the Quinnipiac poll in September, posted the following critiques on facebook this morning:
Q-Poll is not a registered voter poll. It is a random digit dial survey where the results are weighted to the 2012 turnout model. They are weighting the numbers because they have too many Republicans completing the surveys and not enough Democrats. This the opposite of what happened in 2012, leading people to claim “the polls” were “skewed.” Pollsters should look at the raw data and not weight it for what they believe turnout will be.
Just spoke to Douglas Schwartz at the Quinnipiac Poll. He admitted to me they upweight African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians to match the 18+ Census Data. If he released the unweighted raw data it would show a 3 point race. And that doesn’t account for their sample being drawn from random phone numbers, instead of registered voters or better yet, registered voters who have voted in two of four general elections.
Vice President Joe Biden cancelled his trip to New Jersey to campaign for Cory Booker’s Senate campaign, according to reports on PolitickerNJ and Politico.
Biden’s office said he cancelled the trip because of the government shutdown.
But, Politico reports that even if Biden wanted to work on reopening the government, Senate Majority Leader Harry Read has insisted that Biden not be involved in any negotiations.
Booker, Christie maintaining strong leads. Most New Jersey voters favor Gay marriage
Fairleigh Dickinson University released a Public Mind poll this morning that indicates that 62% of New Jersey registered voters agree that gay marriage should be legal, that 45% favor Cory Booker for U.S. Senate over 29% who favor Steve Lonegan and that Governor Chris Christie is leading State Senator Barbara Buono in the gubernatorial race by 33 points, 58%-25%.
Only 33% of the respondents could name both candidates for U.S. Senate. 23% could name Booker. 3% could name Lonegan. 40% did not known who the candidates are or refused to answer the question.
15% said they are following the Senate race closely. 32% somewhat closely. 27% said they are following the Senate race just a little and 24% said not at all.
At least 26% lied.
76% could not say where Booker stands on the National Security Agency’s practice of monitoring domestic phone calls and emails. 75% could not say where Lonegan stands on the issue. 55% could not say where Booker stands on stricter gun control. 73% could not say where Lonegan stands on gun control.
Similarly, majorities could not say where Christie or Buono stand on gun control or the minimum wage. 61% do not know where Buono stands on gay marriage. 57% know that Christie is opposed to gay marriage.
FDU did not poll New Jersey’s attitude about Miley Cyrus or twerking.
The man who outlawed the Big Gulp and french fries in New York City is spending $1 million to rescue Cory Booker from his burning campaign.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Independence USA PAC’s ad touting Booker as a senator who can get things done will start airing on television today, according to a New York Times piece, Anxious Allies Aiding Booker in Senate Bid.
Mr. Booker’s bumpy campaign and shrinking lead in the polls are all the more unsettling to Democratic Party officials because Mr. Lonegan is a political anomaly in the blue-hued state: a Tea Party conservative who describes himself as a “radical,” opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, cheers the current shutdown of the federal government and has relied on polarizing right-wing figures like Sarah Palin and Rick Perry as campaign surrogates.
Mr. Lonegan, despite his ideological alignment, appears to have tapped into lingering doubts about whether Mr. Booker can translate his outsize, self-promotional persona, so popular with the Democratic base, into the rigors of a highly disciplined campaign.
Check in at SaveJersey or tune into How I Met Your Mothertonight if you want to see the ad. I’m not running it unless Bloomberg pays me.
TRENTON — Democrat Cory Booker and Republican Steve Lonegan repeatedly pegged each other as “extreme” during a heated U.S. Senate debate this afternoon. In the first of two televised debate between the candidates — who are running in New Jersey’…
In a column on RollCall yesterday, Washington pundit Stu Rothenberg chastised conservative websites that are excited about Steve Lonegan’s internal poll numbers suggesting his race to replace the late Senator Frank Lautenberg is in single digits.
“Watch the people who matter, not the folks who don’t,” Rothenberg wrote.
In New Jersey, Patrick Murray matters. The Executive Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, Murray told Capitol Quickies’ Bob Jordon that the debates could be decisive.
If Cory Booker tries to give the impression he’s above all this, he might up end up being on the short end of the debate because that would play into the impression that people are starting to get, which is that Booker is not fully engaged in this campaign and that he’s looking ahead to his national career.’’
Lonegan and Booker debate first this afternoon at 1PM at ABC’s Trenton Bureau. The debate will be live streamed here and broadcast on 6ABC (Philadelphia market) on Sunday, October 6 at 9:30 am and on 7ABC in the New York market at 11am. Noticias Univision 41 will air the debate in Spanish on Friday, October 11 at 11pm.
The second and final debate between Booker and Lonegan will be on Wednesday, October 9 at Rowan University in Glassboro.
How many politicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? I’m sorry, I meant screw the citizens! Just a little levity to take the sting away from the pesky political bug bite.
We’re just a few weeks away from Election Day and the politicians are playing naughty again. The result, a government shutdown which is just their way of throwing a tantrum until things are done their way. They’ve been kicking and screaming for a few days now and apparently “Obamacare” is the target. But why would the plutarchy ever want to reject an idea which would bring some relief to the poor and poverty stricken? The Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act (or ACA for short) goal is simple: Give more Americans access to affordable, quality health insurance and to reduce the growth in health care spending in the U.S. Sounds fair enough so why the tantrums? I, personally believe that it mostly stems from the plutarchy thinking that they will have to pay for lazy people who don’t want to work. If we were to ask many of them their opinions about the welfare program, you would probably hear the same thing. Unfortunately, their statistics are a bit off as it has been known for quite a while that the majority that are receiving Medicaid and food stamps are in a southern state called Mississippi where the largest population gets some type of assistance.. I also believe that there is major profiting by investors via the pharmaceutical companies and medical supply companies and the new plan will cause the distinct possibility that someone making 500 million per year will now make 449 million instead. Yes, the numbers are extreme but so are the wealth averages in comparison to the poverty level average.
President Obama made the following statement: “One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government shut down major parts of the government all because they didn’t like one law,” Mr. Obama said. “This Republican shut down did not have to happen, but I want every American to understand why it did happen. Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to fund the government unless we defunded or dismantled the Affordable Care Act. They’ve shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans. In other words, they demanded ransom just for doing their job.”
Yeah, Yeah, yada yada…they are holding their breath until the POTUS does what they want…who does this hurt? The citizens of the United States who are more than just poor, but more like destitute.
Fairleigh Dickinson University released a 
