Posted on 09/16/2008 11:04:11 AM PDT by impeachedrapist
New Jersey is now, according to recent polls, tantalizingly close in the Presidential race. While I do not suggest McCain/Palin expend resources for a NJ victory, this suddenly competitive state could cause more headaches for rejected (by Obama) Harry Reid.
Pulled from the Web:
In [a] poll, conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University, Lautenberg was leading Zimmer by 45 percent to 28 percent. The poll of 589 registered voters was conducted between June 17 and 22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Here
25 Jul 08:
The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll released yesterday found Lautenberg leading Dick Zimmer by 45 percent to 37 percent among likely voters.
Here
12 Aug 08, Quinnipiac:
Democratic incumbent Sen. Frank Lautenberg leads Republican challenger Dick Zimmer 48 - 41 percent among likely New Jersey voters, a more select group than registered voters surveyed in previous polls.
19 Aug 08:
Democrat Frank Lautenberg has a 50%-32% lead over Republican Dick Zimmer in the race for U.S. Senate, according to a Zogby International poll released today.
Here
This was just a quick search and there are probably other polls out there. Please post 'em if you've got 'em. Regardless, these are NOT good numbers for an incumbent senator. Even the best of those polls only shows Lautenberg at 50%. If McCain/Palin simply make an appearance with Zimmer, it could boost his fundraising and name recognition substantially and perhaps make this one a nailbiter. At least one poll mentioned that Zimmer, despite serving as a NJ Congressional rep, still suffered (when the poll was conducted) from rather poor name recognition.
Others laughed at me (in a kind way) last week for suggesting Lautenberg could lose. That's fine. Just going on polls, I'd say Zimmer's got a shot at stealing a seat.
Then, after digging through FEC data from June 30th of this year, it appears at that time Lautenberg had $1.3 million in cash on hand, but $3 million in debt. Zimmer had $411K on hand, but only $277K in debt. So Zimmer actually appears to be in better shape as of the most recent FEC data.
Lautenberg has raised $6.2 million total, but spent every penny. And he still can't break 50% in the polls?!? If this race isn't on the GOP's radar screen, it should be.
No, I didn’t mean Sen. Zimmer would vote Reid out of power. (Although anything’s possible, I suppose.) I just meant that Reid losing a NJ Senate seat after crowing about reaching 60 would cause him more than a little indigestion.
Zogby does use “scientific methodology” for his on-line surveys, such as making sure that X% of the sample are registered Democrats and Y% are Hispanic, etc., but not only are the persons who answer the survey self-selected (those willing to receive e-mails from Zogby) but such persons routinely claim to belong to groups to which they do not belong (I, myself, answered Zogby’s on-line surveys in 2004 and 2006 claiming to be a Gore-voting Democrat from New Hampshire when none of that is true).
Over half the NJ electorate weren’t NJ voters when Lautenberg won the Senate seat in 1982.
Yeah, but the electorate today is MUCH MUCH more liberal than the 1982 electorate. Entire countis have flipped from solid (R) heartland to 80% Democrat and disfunctional (R) country and local parties. Trust me on that, I live in one of the counties in the north, and it’s not as bad as the Central NJ collapse of the R party.
A very large plurailty of NJ voters are foreign born.
Another very large plurality is on government welfare/assistance (including major corporations)
Another very large plurality of NJ voters are government employees.
Those three groups together are well over 55% of the NJ electorate.
And Zimmer doesn’t even have a message to deliver, let alone a compelling message to these groups to woo them into voting for him.
And if you're such a darned liar, why would I believe you anyway?!? ;-)
So, given what you just said, why can’t a fairly liberal incumbent with over $6 million raised & spent break 50% in the polls against a second-tier candidate with (acc to you) no message?
Hey, I only lie to liberal pollsters with stupid on-line surveys. : )
As for the fact that false voter self-identification is a potential problem not only in on-line surveys, but also in scientific polls, that’s true, of course, but the problem is compounded in the on-line surveys because a person that signs up will get to express his opinion on every survey that Zogby takes (one receives e-mails a couple of times a month), while the guy that lies when a pollster calls him on the phone only affects a single poll. If a person claims to be a black Democrat from Morristown, NJ and goes on to say in all of Zogby’s surveys that he’ll be voting for McCain, it could have an effect on the results of every survey that Zogby publishes, since all of a sudden Zogby will believe that McCain will get 50% of the black vote in Morris County.
Because it's New Jersey, a Democratic stronghold. Because Lautenberg has 3 times as much cash on hand as Zimmer. Because Lautenberg is up between 7 and 11 points in the polls. How many reasons do you want?
Not a chance in hell Zimmer wins.
And Lautenberg is a third-tier candidate and a total hack, and more of has-been than Zimmer, who at least appears to be alive and breathing, unlike that zombie Lautenberg.
Not a chance in Hell I take your lightweight, vapid nonsense seriously.
We have different understandings here, and I’m not sure which of us is correct. But as I understand it, Zogby’s online respondents (I used to be one) go into a pool. Then they are randomly selected from this pool for specific polls, not solicited for every survey. Anecdotally, when I participated I was not contacted all that often.
Well, at least you're giving it the ol' college try. Okay, first please provide a source regarding cash on hand. Mine is somewhat dated, but what I found so far surprisingly shows a slight Zimmer lead.
Dem stronghold? Not really. I've shown above that Kerry won by 7 points, and Franks lost a recent Senate race by 3 points after being overwhelmed by Corzine's spending. But let's say I accept your premise that Lautenberg is an incumbent Democrat running in a Dem stronghold, he leads by 7-11 points in various polls and has three times the cash Zimmer does. You still haven't answered the basic question that would plague any incumbent in this position: With all these supposed advantages why can't Sen. Sure Thing break 50% in the polls?
The FEC has all that on line. Link. Just select New Jersey and the senate race.
With all these supposed advantages why can't Sen. Sure Thing break 50% in the polls?
Why can't Senator Elizabeth Dole or Norm Coleman? Mitch McConnell barely breaks the 50 mark, but I'm not sweating him because he's leading by 17 points. Lautenberg's up by 11 points, which seems to indicate that his opponent can't even break 40% in the polls. Now explain just how the hell Zimmer is supposed to win when with a total like that? Link
Lautenberg has raised over $6M, and he's spent over $6M. And he's got another $3M in debt. And he STILL can't break 50% in the polls.
So you'll excuse me if I have to stifle a giggle when responding to the "Zimmer has no chance in Hell" posts. :-) If he truly had no chance, someone by now certainly could have come up with some hard numbers to counter my numbers on this thread. :-D
Here's yet another recent poll from yet another pollster:
The poll of 600 likely New Jersey voters was conducted Sept. 9-11 by Research 2000... found Democratic incumbent Frank Lautenberg is leading Republican Dick Zimmer 49-41 in a U.S. Senate race.
Well, perhaps they don’t contact you for every survey, but I got e-mailed quite often for surveys, at least a couple of times a month. Maybe Zogby really needed Gore-voting Hispanic New Hampshire Democrats for his surveys. : )
Even if the participants are randomly selected from a pool of respondents (which I doubt, since Zogby always makes sure that his polls have a certain percentage of people from each demographic group), the pool of respondents is still self-selected and is thus not a cross-section of the electorate. And what do you figure the response rate is on these things? I know many people hang up when a pollster calls, but it’s even easier to delete Zogby’s e-mail or just leave it there “for later” and never answering (especially since it takes like 15 minutes to go through all those questions that you’ve already answered in every prior survey). There’s a reason why the Zogby on-line surveys often yield ridiculous results such as Kerry leading Bush in TN and Kerry winning the election with over 350 EVs.
I’ll consider a Zogby poll, and take it with a grain of salt, but the Zogby surveys are so unscientific that I don’t even look at them. How Zogby conned The Wall Street Journal into buying into that crap is beyond me.
More data supporting my position. Coleman, McConnell and Dole have long been considered vulnerable. As they should be.
McConnell is far from the only Republican Senator in trouble this fall. In addition to Kentucky, at least nine other Republican Senate seats are potentially in play including seats in Alaska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Virginia, and Texas.
Two of the above three are in GOP (Presidentially speaking) states. Yet when I place a Dem incumbent polling poorly in a Dem (Presidentially speaking) state, curiously he's not vulnerable! :-)
Frank Lautenberg is in trouble. Zimmer's still the underdog, but it wouldn't take much to turn this race into a nailbiter.
And your NH Gore crack made me LOL!
Pinging you here since I see you’ve both posted info on this race.
Zimmer does have a shot at winning, more due to concerns about Lautenberg’s age. If Lautenberg wins, he’ll be 90 when his term is up.
Still, while I bope Zimmer wins, I have no enthusiasm for him.
I can certainly understand that. Up until recently I felt that way about a certain white-haired guy running for President.
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