State Senator Joe Kyrillos is the New Jersey GOP nominee for U. S. Senate.
In Ocean County, with 99.5% of the vote reported, Kyrillos has 78.5% with 17,538 votes.
David Douglas Brown came in second in Ocean Co with 9.6%. Joseph “Rudy” Rullo is third with 6% and Badar Qarmout is last with 5.6%.
In Monmouth County, with 90% of the district reporting, Kyrillos has 82% of the vote. Rullo is second with 8.6%, Brown third with 5.4% and Qarmout last with 4%.
Middletown – April 12… Today, New Jersey State Senator Joe Kyrillos’ campaign for U.S. Senate against Bob Menendez made public the results of its first filing with the Federal Election Commission.
Putting Senator Kyrillos’ fundraising among the ranks of top tier incumbents and challengers alike for U.S. Senate seats around the country, the campaign revealed that it had raised over $1.75 million as of its first deadline on March 31st, 2012, from almost 2,000 individual donors – 90% of whom are New Jersey-based contributors. The campaign reported $1.4 million cash on hand.
Kyrillos’ strong fundraising report comes on the same day the results of the most recent Quinnipiac University Poll were made public, showing Kyrillos closing in on Menendez – who is still only at 44% on the ballot. Maurice Carroll, Director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said, “Menendez’s numbers are lackluster, to say the least … This race could get interesting.’” Incumbents polling under 45% are in significant danger and Menendez has been consistently under 45% in recent public polling. This is Jon Corzine territory.
PolitickerNJ reports, “State Sen. Joe Kyrillos’ campaign for U.S. Senate has picked up steam over the past month with a new poll showing the Republican within 9 points of incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez.”
Senator Kyrillos said, “I am gratified and humbled not only by the amount we have raised for our effort thus far, but by the depth and breadth of support from my fellow New Jerseyans. As I have traveled this great state and met with individual New Jersey taxpayers and families, the message couldn’t be clearer: we simply cannot afford more politics as usual. Bob Menendez offers us only more of the same: more taxes, more spending and more job-killing regulation. I have worked alongside Governor Christie and like-minded reformers to change New Jersey for the better and I am confident that this, our first, fundraising effort demonstrates that we will have the resources necessary to take this fight to our opponent and bring the same kind of change to Washington in November.”
The big story in yesterday’s Asbury Park Press was the political spat between southern Jersey lawmakers and U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg over the proposed Rutgers-Rowan merger. Large photos of State Senate President Sweeney and Lautenberg covered most of the front page.
In case you haven’t been following, Governor Chris Christie has proposed reorganizing Rutgers, Rowan and the University of Medicine and Dentistry. Rutgers-Camden would become part of Rowan. Rowan would get a medical school associated with George Norcross Univeristy Cooper University Hospital. Robert Wood Johnson Hospital would become part of a medical school at Rutgers-New Brunswick, and it will be a while before there are more UMDNJ indictments.
MMM hasn’t been following it all that much. Our young legal eagle friends at Save Jersey don’t like it because they think it will devalue their law degrees if they apply to a firm that doesn’t know the difference between Rutgers-Camden and Rutgers-Newark. And then there’s the two idiots who don’t like the deal…that former Navy SEAL that ran for Assembly who got into it with Christie at a Town Hall meeting and Lautenberg.
If not for the idiot SEAL and the idiot U. S. Senator nobody from New Jersey who isn’t directly affected by the merger would know about it, except for news junkies like us.
Lautenberg wrote to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan alleging the proposed merger is improper and copied U.S. Attorney General Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder and New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney Paul “New Jersey is not corrupt” Fishman, thereby implying that the merger is criminal.
Having already used “idiot” and “numb-nuts” with great fanfare, Christie’s team dubbed Lautenberg’s letter as “outrageous,” “uninformed,” and “bizarre.”
None of that was front page newsworthy. It took Norcross and Sweeney launching Sweeney’s 2014 campaign for Launtenberg’s job to make the front page of the APP.
Wednesday morning Sweeney emailed a scathing open letter attacking Lautenberg for opposing the merger and for his failure as a U.S. Senator to bring home Washington money for New Jersey’s higher education institutions. Several other south Jersey lawmakers, including two Republicans, signed with letter with Sweeney. Norcross later sent a statement calling Lautenberg a “great Senator for north Jersey” who has failed southern New Jersey to the same email list.
The Sweeney/Norcross statements are not really about the Rutger-Rowan merger. The real message is that Lautenberg’s career is coming to an end. That message has been confirmed by the silence of Democratic leaders who have staid out of this fight. U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, Assembly Speaker Sheilia Oliver, Democratic State Chairman John Wisniewski, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker have all been silent. No one is backing up Lautenberg.
The message to Lautenberg…prepare for retirement… just don’t quit and let Christie appoint your replacement. The message to Democratic donors…don’t give to Lautenberg’s 2014 reelection campaign.
So, the point of the last 460 words is that The Asbury Park Press made the 2014 race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate front page news yesterday. That wouldn’t be so bad if there were not a U.S. Senate election between two relatively unknown candidates, U.S. Senator Bob Mendendez and State Senator Joe Kyrillos this year.
Our friend Charles Measley, who wakes up every morning thinking of what hell he can unleash on Frank Pallone’s life, is having a caption contest for this photo snapped of Pallone and Bob Menendez at yesterday’s Belmar St. Patrick’s Parade:
If you leave your caption on Charles’s Frank Pallone Not For New Jerseyfacebook page you will be eligible for a $10 Dunkin Donuts gift card courtesy of Charles.
If you leave your caption here, you can read app.com for free this week.
It has taken Sen. Menendez 17 years in Washington to offer a jobs proposal. The unfortunate thing is during Sen. Menendez’ time in the U.S. Senate unemployment has skyrocketed from 4.7% to 8.3% as he voted for higher taxes, more spending and job killing regulations. His only solution is to attack the private sector, oppose energy independence and job producing projects and demand higher taxes to fix our economy.
I will fight to close the spigot on Washington spending, reform our tax code so it is friendly to the taxpayer and small businesses and pass a balanced budget amendment that forces Congress to spend within its means rather than endless borrowing of money from China. Anything less is unacceptable.
82% Don’t Know Enough About Kyrillos To Form An Opinion On His U.S. Senate Candidacy
New Jersey voters continue to approve of the job Governor Chris Christie is doing, according to a Quinnipiac poll released this morning.
Christie’s job approval is 55-38%, with a significant gender gap. Men approve of the governor 62-32% while woman approve 49-44%.
New Jersey voters approved of Christie’s proposed income tax cut by a 55-31% margin.
If Christie were selected as the vice presidential nominee, his presence on the ballot as Mitt Romney’s running mate would close the gap between Romney and President Obama, but not by enough to carry the state. Obama beats Romney 49-39% in New Jersey. The gap closes to 49-43% if Christie in Romney’s VP choice.
In the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez bests Republican Joe Kyrillos by 49-34% with Independents favoring the Democrat 44-32%.
82% of the respondents did not know enough about Kyrillos to form and opinion.
“Sen. Robert Menendez’s numbers are only so-so, but nobody has heard of State Sen. Joe Kyrillos. He gets only the generic Republican vote,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
In the Republican presidential primary, Romney leads former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum 38-24%, with Texas Congressman Ron Paul coming in third with 12%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gets 9%. The Republican primary survey has a margin of error of +/- 4.6%.
Obama beats all Republican contenders in New Jersey. Santorum by 52-34%, Gingrich by 55-30% . If Quinnipiac polled Paul against Obama, they did not report the results.
Quinnipiac surveyed 1396 registered voters, 446 (32%) of them Republicans, between February 21-27. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.6%
Former Highlands Mayor Anna Little has filed her federal paper work registering as a candidate for United States Senate.
Friends of Anna Little was designated as principle campaign committee on the FEC Form 1 STATEMENT OF ORGANIZATION that was signed by campaign treasurer Brett Rappaport on January 31, 2012 and received by the Secretary of the Senate on February 8, 2012.
The committee has established bank accounts at Valley National Bank in Highlands, NJ and First Virginia Community Bank in Fairfax, VA.
West New York Mayor Felix Roque is endorsing Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Kyrillos over his fellow Hudson County Democrat, Senator Robert Menendez, in this November’s election, according to a report at Politickernj.
Despite telling multiple press outlets that she was running and despite professionally produced fundraising appeals for a campaign for U.S. Senate, Anna Little has not decided whether of not she will challenge Joe Kyrillos for the GOP nomination to unseat Robert Menendez.
Little’s manager, Larry Cirignano, told The Asbury Park Press, “She’s thinking about it. She wants to wait and see what the people think –if they want a choice or are they satisfied with the field. It’s (a matter) of who is the best person to beat Menendez.”
Highlands GOP Municipal Chairwoman Carol Bucco has already weighed in. Bucco and her husband Tony, long time Little supporters, were in attendance at Kyrillo’s campaign kickoff event at the Lincroft Inn in Middletown yesterday. Sources tell MMM that Bucco declined to sign Little’s nominating petition.
