During the U.S. Senatorial debate on Friday when Cory Booker and Steve Lonegan were calling each other extremists, Lonegan charged that Booker supports late term and partial birth abortions.
Booker countered, “I support, when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, the law of the land as it is right now.”
However, Booker told a different story to Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) a different story while seeking their endorsements to be New Jersey’s next U.S. Senator.
MMM has obtained an endorsement memo that Booker provided to Planned Parenthood and a completed questionnaire he provided NARAL. The documents were leaked a Google Group which has since been closed to public view.
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.
Last week the Quinnipiac poll had Cory Booker up in the U.S. Senate race by 12 points and the Monmouth poll had Booker up by 13.
Steve Lonegan’s strategist and pollster Rick Shaftan told SaveJersey that their campaign’s 4 day tracking internal poll has Lonegan down only 3 points, 47%-43%, with two weeks to go before the special election on Wednesday October 16.
In my years observing and participating in New Jersey politics, it’s been rare that an internal poll has proved more accurate than the normally reliable Monmouth or Quinnipiac polls. Adam Geller is the only partisan pollster who I would give more credence to than the best of the independents.
This time could be different. There is no historical model for predicting how voters will behave on the third Wednesday in October. There is also no model for predicting how voters still displaced by Superstorm Sandy will behave in the first non-primary election since their homes were destroyed. More then usual, the pollster’s assumptions and weighting impact the results.
Shaftan admits that his Democratic turnout assumptions are lower than what many others expect. He told MMM that he expects African-Americans will only be 8% of the vote in the senate elections compared to 12% in last year’s presidential election in New Jersey.
Releasing internal numbers that are substantially better than those produced by independent polls is a double edged sword. The release is intended to excite voters and to convince potential donors that their money won’t be wasted on a lost cause. On the downside, after the opposition scoffs at the numbers, they can react to them with their own ads or GOTV efforts.
TRENTON — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan turned to churches and synagogues today to help get out the vote — and accused President Obama of suppressing religious freedom under the Affordable Care Act. Lonegan, a conservative activist…
Maybe Cory Booker’s internal polling numbers are similar to Steve Lonegan’s and show the U.S. Senate race closer than the independent polls indicate.
Booker is launching a negative ad against Steve Lonegan today, according to Politico.
Booker’s ad targets Lonegan.
Lonegan is still running against President Obama and ObamaCare.
With the Monmouth polls showing Booker’s support is shallow, that voters think that Booker is in it more for fame than service and that he’s a typical politician, Lonegan would be wise to focus on Booker’s weaknesses over the next two weeks.
Despite holding his lead within the margins of error in the Monmouth polls, Booker’s favorability rating has taken a 20 point hit since August. The percentage of those who view Booker favorably dropped 7% while those who view him unfavorably increased by 13%.
Lonegan’s overall favorability rating declined 4%. 35% said they view Lonegan favorably, up from 31% in August. 28% said they viewed Lonegan unfavorably, up 8% since August.
Lonegan’s name recognition has jumped 11% since August when 49% said they had no opinion of him. 38% said they have no opinion of him in today’s survey.
Booker has widened his lead with Independent voters from 2% in August to 6% today. Monmouth Polling Director Patrick Murray said this figure is statistically insignificant.
Lonegan has shored up his support among Republicans a bit. 83% of Republican likely voters say they will vote for Lonegan, up from 79% in August. 14% of Republicans said they would vote for Booker, down from 16% in August.
Lonegan’s strategist and pollster Rick Shaftan says his man is down by only 6%, 48-42. Shaftan thinks Booker’s shallow support in his base will translate into a lower turnout among Democratic voters than Republcans and conservatives. “Maybe I’m undercounting African-Americans who I have at 8% of the turnout,”Shaftan said, “I know others expect more. I do not.” Shaftan said that the African-American vote was 12% of the turnout in last year’s election in New Jersey.
BOGOTA — Steve Lonegan was 35 points down to Newark Mayor Cory Booker a few weeks ago, but having a good time. His campaign for the U.S. Senate seemed a desultory sort of affair, not far removed from the kind he ran when he would go house to house…
Ben Dworkin, Director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, introduces U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan. September 24, 2013
GOP nominee for U.S. Senate Steve Lonegan took a break from bashing Newark Mayor Cory Booker and ObamaCare last night, and gently assaulted the psyches of the young Democratic students of Rider University in attendance at the University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics Governing New Jersey presentation.
Lonegan’s personal story of raising a family and building a business in the 1980’s while going blind, was the context he set up to espouse his Libertarian philosophy and policies to the group of about 100 (mostly students) attending the event.
The Federal Reserve Bank’s quantitative easing policy of pumping $85 billion per month into the economy and keeping interest rates at record lows, was the focus of Lonegan’s remarks as he urged students to “play the hand you’re dealt” in life and avoid becoming dependent on government to solve their own, and society’s problems.
Lonegan shared how as a young man, he rejected a life of “being destined to the entitlement state”, of being sustained by disability benefits and food stamps, in order to build a successful life. “Interest rates were 10-12 percent in the 80’s, yet I was able to build a successful business and employ a lot of people, ” the candidate said, “I couldn’t do that with today’s regulations and economic policies.”
