Posted on 10/06/2002 12:35:09 PM PDT by KQQL
Former Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg may have been gone, but apparently he was not forgotten by New Jersey voters.
A poll taken by The Record during the first few days of the Democrat's comeback campaign for a fourth Senate term found Lautenberg ahead of Republican Douglas R. Forrester, 46 percent to 40 percent.
Lautenberg campaign officials cheered the results.
"I think that's great, especially since by the time you got into the field [surveying voters], we'd been in the race for a day and a half," said spokesman Tom Shea.
But Forrester campaign manager Bill Pascoe noted that the Republican trailed Lautenberg by less than the poll's margin of error.
"What you've got is a statistical dead heat," Pascoe said, stressing that Lautenberg was under 50 percent.
The poll found Lautenberg had a higher favorable rating than Forrester and that more people felt they knew where he stands on issues. Also, a majority thought the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold Wednesday's New Jersey Supreme Court order allowing Lautenberg on the ballot as a last-minute substitute.
Lautenberg, who retired from the Senate rather than seek re-election in 2000, was tapped by Democratic leaders last week after one-term Sen. Robert G. Torricelli withdrew from the race under an ethical cloud and sinking poll numbers.
The Record Poll found that if Torricelli were still running, Forrester would be ahead, 49 percent to 39 percent. The main reason Lautenberg fares better against Forrester is a radical shift by independent voters, said pollster Del Ali of Rockville, Md.-based Research 2000.
The poll conducted by Ali found 55 percent of independents favored Forrester over Torricelli, but only 34 percent support Forrester when he is matched up against Lautenberg.
"The parties are unified behind their candidates, but the key is the independents, and that's the disturbing thing for Forrester," Ali said. "Independents just went back to Lautenberg."
The poll contacted 601 likely voters by telephone Thursday and Friday using randomly generated phone numbers in exchanges chosen to ensure an accurate reflection of the state. The margin of error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than plus or minus 4 percentage points for each number.
This means that there is a 95 percent probability that the "true" figure would fall within that range if the entire population of voters were sampled. The margin of error is higher for any subgroup, such as party affiliation.
Pascoe noted that the 4 percent margin of error in the poll means Lautenberg's support could be as low as 42 percent and Forrester's as high as 44 percent.
Pascoe also argued that because of Lautenberg's experience in politics, he should essentially be considered an incumbent and Forrester a challenger.
"The fact that an incumbent is only drawing 46 percent of the vote is troubling news for an incumbent," Pascoe said.
Forrester has maintained that Lautenberg's entrance into the race was illegal, and Republicans are continuing to fight it on several fronts. Before answering questions about the poll, Pascoe said he was conceding only that that Lautenberg was a "potential rival."
Pascoe said he was not troubled that 61 percent of voters said they knew "not much" or "nothing at all" about Forrester's record and where he stands on the issues.
"What you're really talking about is the well-known difficulty of getting known in this state," Pascoe said. "We've had difficulty spreading Doug's positive message because it seemed every other day there was some dramatic revelation about Torricelli. It's been quite a distraction."
Democrats, however, contend that Forrester said repeatedly that his primary reason for running was to oust Torricelli, and that now he's grasping for a new message.
"They've spent $2 million on television and they've not done one issue ad," said Lautenberg spokesman Shea. "It's not surprising people do not know where [Forrester] stands on the issues, because he never talked about them."
The poll found 52 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of Lautenberg, a number Shea called "phenomenal," especially since the last time Lautenberg ran a statewide campaign was 1994. Twenty-six percent had an unfavorable opinion of Lautenberg; Forrester's favorable/unfavorable ratio was 43 percent to 21 percent.
Pollster Ali said one positive sign for Forrester is that he still has an opportunity to define himself for voters.
"He's got more room to grow than Lautenberg," Ali said.
Pascoe noted that twice as many people have a positive opinion of Forrester than a negative one.
Ali said Torricelli spent much of the summer trying to portray Forrester as an out-of-step conservative, but that those attacks seemed not to have stuck.
"Torricelli's credibility was so shot with voters, their reaction was probably, 'We don't know if it's true,'" Ali said. "Now, if Lautenberg comes after Forrester, it could hold more water."
Torricelli pulled out of the race Monday, 15 days after the deadline under state law. Since state law did not say what should happen when candidates withdraw after the deadline, Democrats asked for a ruling from state courts.
With historic swiftness on Wednesday, the state Supreme Court heard arguments and then issued a unanimous order telling county clerks to change ballots and mail substitutes for any that had already gone out.
Republicans said Democrats were trying to change the rules at the last minute, and the GOP has appealed the case to two different federal courts and to the U.S. Justice Department.
Democrats are hoping that voters who were turned off by Torricelli would welcome another Democrat and forgive the way the switch was made.
The poll found that 48 percent of likely New Jersey voters thought the state Supreme Court made the right decision in allowing Lautenberg on the ballot, while 34 percent thought it was wrong.
The rest were not sure. Predictably, Democrats strongly supported the ruling and Republicans strongly opposed it. Among independents, 52 percent thought it was the right decision; 23 percent thought it was wrong.
When likely voters were asked how the U.S. Supreme Court should handle the case, 51 percent said the court should uphold the decision putting Lautenberg on the ballot and 36 percent said the court should reverse it and keep Torricelli's name on the ballot.
Ali said home-state pride could explain why voters don't want the state Supreme Court's decision overruled.
"They could be saying, 'This is our state, it's our decision, these are our justices, and we're going to stand behind them,'"Ali said.
He also noted that New Jersey overwhelmingly voted for Al Gore over President Bush in 2000 and there could be some lingering unease in the state about the U.S. Supreme Court's involvement in elections.
That's a factor Forrester and the Republicans have to take into account as they decide how long to push their appeals, Ali said. Barring a quick victory in Washington, "at a certain point Forrester's going to have to say 'Drop this' and get it off the front pages because he needs to get out and define himself.
"If this carries late into this week, it'll become a negative for him," Ali said.
Pascoe did not disagree, but he said that Forrester got into the election because of "some very lofty principles, notably that no man is above the law. If you think about it, that's a serious problem Bob Torricelli had - that he thought he could get away with things.
"Politically, it would make sense for us to accept the ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court and engage in a campaign against Frank Lautenberg right now. But Doug is unwilling to allow a horrible precedent to stand without taking it to the highest court in the land."
He voted to increase taxes on senior citizen recipients of Social Security, and he voted against eliminating the marriage tax.
Lautenberg might not remember those votes, but they are on the record. Call him on it.
Try this scenerio for a fit. The SC puts the Torch back on the ballot
This outrages the Dems, and they vote the Torch in. The other way around if they elect the Lout, and he resigns, then The Torch
would only have a two year term, the other way he gets six years.
Don't forget they run dead people so their constituents can participate.
I'm agreeing with you. Unless the SCOTUS makes a ruling this week, it's not likely to rule at all until after the election which will be too late for Forrester.
But the precedent needs to be stopped in its tracks or you'll have a mockery out of the entire primary process with rogue candidates entering only after the field has been cleared and with no time to expose the negatives of a candidate (particularly with CFR in effect).
I think this is a trial run for 2004 and that the DNC will substitute whomever wins the nomination for President with their own hand-picked candidate (likely Clinton, Clinton or Gore) after the nominee is forced to step aside but too late for the GOP to run an effective counter-campaign. And, given the Repubs are almost guaranteed to re-nominate Bush and his squishy "let's get along with the Democrats" tone, the Rats are setting things up to steal 2004 right from under our noses.
As much as they hate the thought of losing the Senate, the Rats can't bear the possibility of six more years of Bush.
What are you referring to? According to this article, nobody but Republicans are upset in NJ:
Other Than Republicans, Few in N.J. Feel Outraged
I strongly suspect this article is an accurate portrayal of non-GOP voters thinking.
Kean was approached about it, but declined the offer. He's too happy serving a President at Drew University, I guess.
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