In poll conducted over the weekend before Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver got into the U.S. Senate race, the Quinnipiac Polling Institute reports that Newark Mayor Cory Booker has leads of over 40% against Congressmen Frank Pallone and Rush Holt for the Democratic Special Election nomination for U.S. Senate.
In the gubernatorial race, Governor Chris Christie is maintaining his 30 point lead over State Senator Barbara Buono, the Democratic nominee. Buono’s name recognition as risen from the high twenties to the low forties, but as voters get to know her, they don’t like her. Buono’s favorability rating is negative 18-23 percent, with 56% not knowing enough about her to express an opinion.
Presumptive GOP nominee for Senate, Steve Lonegan, trails Booker by 54%-27%. Independents favor Booker over Lonegan 50%-25%.
Lonegan is within 10 points of Frank Pallone, and is virtually tied with the Monmouth County Democrat among Independents, leading by 29%-28%.
Lonegan loses to Holt by only 5% and is also tied with Independents against Holt.
Last month Monmouth Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal went on NJTV to make the case that Governor Chris Christie is leading the in the polls so strongly because of how he has handled the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy and because the presumed Democratic nominee for governor, State Senator Barbara Buono is largely unknown.Canada
In the month since Gopal’s interview, Buono’s name recognition has ticked up only 4 points. Only 20% of the electorate know enough about her to form an opinion. Of that 20%, only half have a favorable opinion of her, according to the Quinnipiac Poll. Despite extensive free media granted Buono by New Jersey’s threelargestnewspapers, Christie has high favorable ratings even among registered Democrats.
Partisan control preference of State Legislature narrows
Support for same-sex marriage grows strongly
New Jersey voters’ affections for Governor Chris Christie are not waning, according to a Quinnipiac Poll released this morning.
70% approve of the Christie’s job performance, including 48% of Democrats. 66% think he deserves to be reelected. Democrats narrowly side with reelecting the governor, 44%-43% with 13% unsure or not answering.
The 13% of unsure Democrats may not know who Barbara Buono is. “Corzine’s Budget Chair,” as Christie refers to the presumed Democratic gubernatorial nominee on the stump, is unknown by 79% of the electorate, including 79% of Democrats. Of the 20% who know of Buono, only half view her favorably. Buono’s name recognition ticked up 4 points since Q’s February poll when only half of the then 16% of voters viewed her favorably. If this trend continues through November, Buono will be known by 56% of the voters, 28% of whom will view her unfavorably.
If the election were held today, Christie would win, 60%-25%.
41% think Christie would make a good president. 44% think he would not make a good president. 15% are unsure. 46% would like to see him run for president in 2016, 47% would rather he did not.
On the question of which party should control the State Legislature, the Democrats still win, but the trend has been moving towards the Republican Party since November. Currently 43% favor Democratic control, 42% favor Republican control and 15% are not sure.
Support for same-sex marriage in New Jersey has grown strongly since last May when 53% told Quinnipiac they favored it and 42% opposed it. In today’s poll, 60% favor same-sex marriage and 30% oppose.
New Jersey voters either strongly disapprove of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and think he’s dishonest, or they really don’t care much about the news of his ongoing scandals, depending on which poll you trust.
This morning the Quinnipiac Polling Institute released a poll that indicates that Menendez approval rating is down 15 points in one month. By a 44%-28% margin, New Jersey voters say he is not honest or trustworthy. Menendez’s approval numbers are upside down with 41% of voters disapproving of him and only 36% approving.
Just a week ago, Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press released a poll with the headline Sen Menendez Unaffected By Donor Scandal . The Monmouth/APP poll says that 68% of New Jersey voters had heard about “the donor scandal” but that only 24% thought the senator was involved in any wrongdoing. The poll said that 65% either hadn’t formed an opinion or hadn’t heard enough. The Monmouth/APP poll said that Menendez’s approval ratings werre similar to prior ratings over the last two years. Last week, 41% of the voters approved of the job Menendez is doing and only 28% disapproved.
Menendez has been in Afghanistan and out of the news for most of the week between poll releases.
This time around, Murray’s poll release is flawed. His numbers are fine. It’s his spin, which determines how most news outlets report the poll, that is the problem.
A Quinnipiac poll released this morning shows Governor Chris Christie’s sky high approval ratings are continuing to rise.
79% of New Jersey voters, including 70% of Republicans, approve of the verbal lashing Christie gave to House Speaker John Boehner and the Republican House over the delay in emergency funding for the Hurricane Sandy recovery. Voters approve of the overall job that Christie is doing my a measure of 74%-21%. 94% approve of Christie’s overall response to Hurricane Sandy.
But, if the election was held today, Christie’s down ballot coattails would be weak. By 48%-39%, New Jersey voters want the Democratic Party to retain control of the State Legislature, despite the Legislature’s weak approval ratings.
Only 40% approve of the job the State Senate is doing. 37% approve of the Assembly’s performance.
30% approve of Senate President Steve Sweeney’s performance, 25% disapprove and 45% don’t know enough to say. Only 21% approve of Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver’s performance, 18% disapprove and 61% don’t know enough to say.
In the race, or lack thereof, for the Democratic nomination for governor, former Acting Governor Richard Codey would easily win a primary over Senator Barbara Buono, the only declared candidate. Despite Monmouth County Democratic Chairman Vin Gopal’s strong support, Buono would only receive 10% of primary votes. Sweeney also gets 10%, but Codey gets 28%. 45% don’t know how they would vote.
Christie easily beats all Democratic challengers, 2-1 or better. Christie gets 35% of the Democratic vote.
In the 2014 race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator, Newark Mayor Cory Booker returns the spanking by beating Senator Frank Lautenberg 51%-30%. Most voters like the job that Lautenberg is doing, but think he is too old.
The Kyrillos for U.S. Senate campaign released an internal poll this afternoon that shows the GOP challenger within 4 points of the incumbent, Democrat Robert Menendez, with 65 days left to go before election day. 45% of those survey said they would vote for Menendez, 41% would vote for Kyrillos and 14% are undecided.
Of the Menendez voters, 76% said they were definitely voting for the Hudson County incumbent while 24% said they probably would. 71% of Kyrillos voters were solid compared to 29% probable.
The poll, which was conducted by Magellan Strategies between August 30 and September 3rd, is a survey of 746 likely general election voters from New Jersey. The margin of error is +/- 3.5% with 95% confidence. The survey was weighted based upon past general election turnout demographics.
29% of the respondents were Republicans, 39% Democrats and 35% Independents. 27% of the respondents consider themselves conservative, 16% say they are liberal and 51% say they are moderate.
“Joe’s message of creating jobs for the middle class and working together with members of both sides of the aisle is resonating with the voters of New Jersey,” said Kyrillos Campaign Manager Chapin Fay. “It’s clear New Jerseyans want change and, if this surge continues, in two months they will have it when Joe Kyrillos is elected the next US Senator from New Jersey.”
“This marks another poll in which Menendez is yet again under 50%,” said Adam Geller of National Research, the Kyrillos campaign’s pollster.
Menendez 2012 communication director Paul Brubaker was not immediately available for comment. This post will be updated if he calls back.
If they follow their usual pattern, Quinnipiac will likely release a Kyrillos-Menendez poll from the survey they took August 27-September 2 within the next few days.
A Quinnipiac poll released this morning indicates that Governor Christie’s approval numbers remain strong among New Jersey voters…53% approve of his performance compared to 42% that do not….and that Christie would have been reelected if Newark Mayor Cory Booker was his Democratic opponent and the gubernatorial election was held last week when the poll was taken.
That’s good news for Christie, the NJ GOP and New Jersey taxpayers. Yet, in their write up of the poll, Quinnipiac did their best to spin the poll as a negative for Christie and the lazy main stream media is so far following that lead.
While 58 percent of New Jersey voters watched Gov. Christopher Christie’ keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, only 22 percent of voters say it makes them think more favorably of the governor, whose 53 – 42 percent job approval rating is barely changed, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
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“If Gov. Christopher Christie’s speech marked the opening of a 2016 presidential campaign he might want to try again. People who like the governor liked the speech; those who don’t didn’t. The net result – zero,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Quinnipiac surveyed 1560 registered voters from August 27-September 2. Christie delivered the keynote address at the Republican National Convention late in the evening on August 28. The Bobcats pollsters didn’t start asking about Christie’s speech until the third day of the seven day poll.
While showing their own biases, the Bobcats purported to measure New Jersey voters’ prejudices regarding offices seekers’ gender, race, creed, sexual orientation and waste line.
The numbers say that New Jersey is accepting of most. In the poll that has a margin of error of +/- 2.5%, 3% said they would be less inclined to vote for a female candidate while 10% would be more likely to vote for a female. 4% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who was African-American and 1% would be less likely to do so. 11% would be less likely to vote for a homosexual and 1% would be more likely.
Atheists and Muslims did not fare as well. 39% would be less likely to vote for an atheist, 1% would be more likely.
15% said they would be less likely to vote for an obese candidate, 1% would be more likely to vote for the big boned.
Does this mean that we should adjust Governor Chirstie’s numbers? Would his numbers be 14% higher if he was svelte? No, it doesn’t mean that. It means that this poll is seriously flawed. It reveals more about the pollsters than it does about those being surveyed.
72 % of New Jersey voters still do not know enough about Joe Kyrillos, thus Bob Menendez has slightly widened his lead in the U.S. Senate race, according to a Qunnipiac poll released this morning.
Menendez favorablity rating remains weak, especially for an incumbent, at 37%-25% with 36% not knowing enough about him to form an opinion.
Barack Obama is leading Mitt Romney in New Jersey by 49%-38%. Romney’s favorability rating is upside down, 35%-43%.
New Jersey voters are split over ObamaCare. 47% favor keeping it, 45% favor repealing it.
New Quinnipiac University poll shows him under the all-important 50 percent mark for incumbents
Middletown, May 16… A Quinnipiac University poll released today confirmed Menendez’s worst fear: he can’t poll above 50 percent. As an incumbent, that’s dangerous territory, that’s Jon Corzine territory.
“We’ll keep a close eye on this U.S. Senate race…Sen. Robert Menendez’s lead is far from solid… Menendez would feel a lot better if he could hit 50 percent on his approval rating…” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
It doesn’t help that Menendez has been recently mired in scandal. A top-tier donor of his was convicted last week for illegally donating nearly $100,000 to his campaign- of which he returned only $18,000. Where is the other $80,000, Senator?
Menendez is also being asked to step aside from the Senate Banking Committee’s investigation of the MF Global collapse. This request was made following an investigatory hearing when Menendez tried to direct the focus of the investigation away from his past political ally- former New Jersey Governor MF Global CEO- Jon Corzine.
And, in an interview on MSNBC yesterday discussing the JP Morgan loss, Menendez proved again that he is trying to protect the people close to him- while expecting everyone else to play by the rules. Menendez said, “What I care about is not an individual, I care about a system. Having system controls to ensure that no matter who is at the head of a company, this can’t happen.”
It is clear Menendez doesn’t care about holding ‘individuals’ accountable. See no evil. Hear no evil. Time and again, he has proved unwilling to put his oversight role on the Senate Banking Committee above his self-serving double standard. The people of New Jersey can no longer afford to play second fiddle to Menendez’s political allies.
In poll conducted over the weekend before Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver got into the U.S. Senate race, the Quinnipiac Polling Institute reports that Newark Mayor Cory Booker has leads of over 40% against Congressmen Frank Pallone and Rush Holt for the Democratic Special Election nomination for U.S. Senate.