NJ SEN: Menendez (D) 38%, Kean (R) 40% (Q-Pac)

[TheVirginian]

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x19234.xml

Menendez: 38%
Kean: 40%

Last month, Quinnipiac had Menendez with a seven point lead, 43%-36%.


Also, Monmouth University released their poll today as well:

http://www.monmouth.edu/polling/admin/polls/MUP05_2.pdf (Adobe req'd)

Menendez: 38%
Kean: 37%

Monmouth's poll emphasizes the larger undercurrent of this race: the Undecideds. Thier poll shows an astonishing 25% undecided in a race that has seen a lot of money spent and a lot of time campaigning.

There is good news and bad news in these polls. The bad news is, of course, that Menendez is losing or has only a one-point lead on Kean (depending on which poll you look at) in a Democrat-leaning state where Menendez is the incumbent. The good news is that while Menendez has one of the lowest approval ratings in the Senate, Tom Kean has never had a lead outside the margin of error in this race, and he should have by now. Kean's campaign is certainly adequate, and they all all the pieces they need, but its not coming together as well as it should against an extremely vulnerable incumbent. If the New Jersey GOP had a Michael Steele or Mike McGavick type candidate, Menendez would routinely be polling five-to-ten points down. But Kean's campaign's inability to define the race or to gain an edge on a weak Menendez keeps this race up in the air. When it comes time for those 25% undecideds to pick a side, if Kean's campaign stays the way it is, Menendez will be re-elected.

[bluestateguy]

1. Menendez is winning

Kean=Bush. Campaign over. Thank you for playing.

[TheVirginian]

2. That's not helpful.

Menendez has been playing this card ever since he was appointed at the beginning of this year. Number one, its beginning to wear thin. Number two, it rallies the GOP base in New Jersey around Kean. Number three, a significant amount of New Jersey voters care about in-state politics more than national politics.

I've seen you say the same thing in many, many other threads. You are attempting to oversimplify a race that has many different components, and is being pulled in many different directions, and it simply falls flat. Its really not as simple as you think it is, and people who underestimate the dangers of races like New Jersey are setting themselves up for a huge surprise come November.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Republicans will use the device of transference of hostility

against Mendendez. Nobody is happy with the state government, parks, lottery, being shut down for nearly a week, and when they re-opened, there were new taxes including a 7% sales tax. (BTW, this was the remedy to a problem caused by years of debt piling up by repubican governors.) The voters can't have immediate revenge against Jon Corzine for paying more money, so the republicans will take that frustration and aim it at all democrats, even if a senator to the U.S. Congress is not the same thing as a state senator who voted for the budget and the taxes. Thus, unless he is ready for this, Menendez will be painted with the same broad brush as his democratic state brethren.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Dupe

[bluestateguy]

6. This is Menendez's race to lose

I don't what phantom people they called, but I'm sure Menendez is up by at least 5 points. In 1994 Republicans in red states played the Clinton card, over and over and over again. Democrats who tried to make lame attempts to distance themselves from Clinton only re-confirmed that therefore there was something wrong with Clinton. Kean is another vote for the Bush agenda.

[TheVirginian]

7. "Phantom people"?

Why is it that you doubt the integrity of these polls? Its not like they're the first polls that show Kean with a lead, or the race at a dead heat. In fact, except for a handful of polls that came out in the last six weeks, nearly ALL the polls showed Kean with a lead over Menendez.

You can't just base your insight into elections on meaningless cliches and trivial generalizations. What happened in 1994 happened in 1994. This is twelve years later. If you want to stick your head in the sand over the dangers of losing the NJ Senate seat, that's fine, but there's no logical basis for ignoring the results of a multitude of polls.

[brentspeak]

11. ???

I live in NJ, and I'm not surprised at all by this poll. Unless Menendez can win over NJ residents by force of his own personality and record, he is going to lose this race. Simply criticizing Bush does not cut it in NJ.

[Kahuna]

3. Thank Corzine's shut down of services a couple of weeks ago...

I knew the polls would spell trouble for Menendez. I'm just glad the slippage isn't worse.

[Awsi Dooger]

9. I'm glad it happened early enough

Melendez has time to recover on his own merit. As Hippo Tron indicates lower in this thread, the debates should help Melendez, although Kean figures to improve on his performance in the first one.

I'm encouraged Kean's base number didn't improve significantly. As The Virginian pointed out, very high number of undecideds in this race. If you compare the recent polls to the two new ones, it appears a segment of Menendez' camp drifted to the undecideds, more than they switched to Kean. If that's the case, it's probably short term disillusionment and they will return to Menendez.

Nonetheless, this is a very close race and we better stop kidding ourselves with projections of a 7-9 point win, same with the Cantwell race.

[Hippo_Tron]

8. When is the next debate scheduled?

Menendez will be in the lead again after that.

[agincourt]

10. Blue state, shouldn't even be close.

When are people going to learn the whole GOPig party is crap?

[brentspeak]

12. NJ is not a Blue state

I've lived here my entire life. Republicans have been governor here for 16 of the past 26 years. My district, the 5th district, hasn't elected a Democrat to the House of Representatives since 1978. The new Republican who's filling that seat, Scott Garrett, is about five times more conservative than the previous Republican, Marge Roukema. As for the Senate, Bill Bradley barely squeeked by Republican Christy Todd Whitman to win reelection in 1990. And Menendez doesn't have 1/2 the popularity and notability within the state that Bradley had. The most popular Democrat in NJ is Senator Frank Lautenberg, who, though very popular, is 82 years old and won't run for reelection when his interim term ends in 2008.

[subversive_smurf]

15. Lautenberg will run in '08

In February 2006, Lautenberg announced that he intends to run for reelection in 2008, saying that deciding not to run for reelection in 2000 "was among the worst decisions of his life".

it's from Wikipedia, so it must be true!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lautenberg

[karynnj]

13. Per the Morris County Record,

A second question of whether you think it would be better to have a Democrat or Republican in that seat was 49 (D), 28 (R). I really don't think Kean is good enough to make people vote for the party they don't want.

Still like other NJ people, I don't think we can take it for granted - I'll volunteer in my county. I do think that NJ is concerned about Bush unconstrained. Quinipeac overstated the Republican in 2004 and 2005 - even saying the Corzine race was neck and neck the week before the election that he won by over 10 points.

[JerseygirlCT]

14. I think the trick is that Kean has that name

His dad was respected and liked -- often across party lines.

He's apparently cut from a different cloth, but that name is likely what's helping him.

(And can I just say that I STILL can't get used to calling it Monmouth *University*? Showing my age there, aren't I?)