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Bell Leads Booker Among Independents in New Jersey
weeklystandard.com ^ | 10/27/14 | William Kristol

Posted on 10/27/2014 8:10:58 AM PDT by cotton1706

In the latest wave of the New York Times/CBS/YouGov poll, Cory Booker leads Jeff Bell 51-39.

Bell's admirers (of which I'm one) might be tempted to conclude: Not a bad showing for Bell in a race where the conventional wisdom has been that Booker would win by at least 20 points. Bell's run an interesting campaign, he's raised important issues, it looks as if he'll achieve a respectable if losing result while being massively outspent, and one can leave it at that.

Not quite so fast.

Take a look at some of the poll's internals. Booker is winning Democrats by 91 to 4 percent; Bell is winning Republicans by the exact same overwhelming margin. Those numbers were predictable. (Polarization, anyone?) But take a look at this: Bell is winning independents, who are expected to be close to a third of the electorate, by 45 to 37 percent. I'm not sure observers would have predicted that.

So if Bell is leading among independents, why is Booker ahead? Well, because there will be more Democrats than Republicans voting on Election Day in New Jersey. How many more? That's the question.

The Democratic registration edge is about 7 to 4, and YouGov seems to have weighted the sample accordingly. But what if Democratic turnout is down (Obama has about a 41 percent approval in New Jersey)? And what if Republican turnout is up? If the partisan differential gets smaller, at some point Bell's lead among independents can make up the gap.

To their credit, YouGov releases the unweighted as well as the weighted results from its poll. As it happens, YouGov's unweighted sample, for whatever reason, has about a 6 to 5 ratio of Democrats and Republicans.

(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: elections; nj; senateraces
If only the RNC and NRSC hadn't spent so much money destroying conservative challengers and shoring up their own bland candidates, they may have had some extra funds to send to help Bell.

Nevertheless, he's doing pretty well on his own!

1 posted on 10/27/2014 8:10:58 AM PDT by cotton1706
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To: cotton1706

That’s amazing to me. Not only do I live in NJ but I live in a very Republican part of New Jersey. If I wasn’t a political junkie I don’t think I’d even know Booker had an opponent.


2 posted on 10/27/2014 8:16:08 AM PDT by jocon307
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To: cotton1706

It strikes me as more than a little odd when I see polls indicating a Republican is leading amongst Republicans AND Independents, and yet manages to lose to a Democrat. No wonder the appearance of voter fraud seems so overwhelming when that occurs.


3 posted on 10/27/2014 8:27:47 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: jocon307

Get out there and work for his victory!


4 posted on 10/27/2014 8:29:08 AM PDT by JSDude1
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To: fieldmarshaldj

“It strikes me as more than a little odd when I see polls indicating a Republican is leading amongst Republicans AND Independents, and yet manages to lose to a Democrat.”

Well, you have to take into account the numbers of each group in the state. If the state is overwhelmingly democrat, and a there are few republicans and independents, it’s not going to matter if a candidate leads in the other two groups. The democrat will win.


5 posted on 10/27/2014 8:30:33 AM PDT by cotton1706 (ThisRepublic.net)
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To: cotton1706

True. Although, I believe, there aren’t any states left where Dem registration is over 50% - hence if you have a majority of GOP & Indy voters, which would add up to more than 50% of the electorate, something doesn’t smell right if said GOP candidate loses.


6 posted on 10/27/2014 8:42:12 AM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: fieldmarshaldj
True. Although, I believe, there aren’t any states left where Dem registration is over 50% - hence if you have a majority of GOP & Indy voters, which would add up to more than 50% of the electorate, something doesn’t smell right if said GOP candidate loses.
You'd be right if he was leading Independents by the same margin as he is leading Republicans. He is leading Republicans by 94%-6%. The Dem is leading Democrats by about the same margin. So, if he was leading Independents by a whopping margin to outweigh the 7-4 margin of Dems to Pubs, then he could win. The article says he is leading Independents by about 8%.
7 posted on 10/27/2014 8:49:15 AM PDT by Tennessean4Bush (An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears this is true.)
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To: cotton1706

If the Ebola virus could vote in New Jersey, it would enthusiastically vote for Cory Booker, since the more Democratic support Obama has in Congress, the easier it will be for him to achieve his goal of keeping our borders and airports open to any ebola-carrying West African or jihadi terrorist who wishes to perpetrate biological warfare on our country.


8 posted on 10/27/2014 8:53:36 AM PDT by Bluestocking
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To: cotton1706

Republicans, Independents, etc.....turnout, trunout, turnout is everything. You can defeat the Obamabot.....boot licker.....Booker..if ay alll jsut turnout and vote for Bell!!!


9 posted on 10/27/2014 9:06:30 AM PDT by JLAGRAYFOX ( My only objective is to defeat and destroy Obama & his Democrat Party, politically!!!.)
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To: cotton1706

Bell should have won in 1978 and then again in 1982. NJ people are nearly always wrong.


10 posted on 10/27/2014 9:23:17 AM PDT by Theodore R. (Liberals keep winning; so the American people must now be all-liberal all the time.)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

If the registration is still close to 33% Dem, 20% GOP, and 47% Independent, and if about the same percent break for each along party lines, then he needs to get about 63% of the Independent vote.


11 posted on 10/27/2014 9:31:59 AM PDT by Tennessean4Bush (An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears this is true.)
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To: cotton1706

If Booker lose, we know that the Marxists will have a long night. I think that we will have a good night and we might not have strong conservative candidates, we will have a more conservative agenda.


12 posted on 10/27/2014 9:59:04 AM PDT by ExCTCitizen (I'm ExCTCitizen and I approve this reply. If it does offend Libs, I'm NOT sorry...)
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