Kean Leads Menendez
By California Yankee Posted in 2006 — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
As New Jersey's Democratic Representative Bob Menendez gets sworn in today to fill the remainder of Jon Corzine’s Senate term, a new poll shows him trailing New Jersey Republican state Senator Tom Kean Jr., by 11 percent.
Asked whom they would vote for if the election were held today, Kean received 36 percent to Menendez's 25 percent, but the real winner was Unsure with 37 percent.
The survey was conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind Poll from Jan. 3 to Jan 10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus four percent. Survey details are available here.
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Kean Leads Menendez 11 Comments (0 topical, 11 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
The problem here is that while neither Menendez nor Kean have very high name recognition now, today's appointment of Menendez to the seat of Corzine will provide him with much higher publicity than he received as a Representative. That coupled with NJ leaning blue will change these numbers to Kean's detriment. It's early but it seems that Menendez will have significant advantages in November.
...did Kean stop being a high-recognition name in NJ? It certainly was one as of 2001, when I left the state...
The poll internals are as follows:
Menendez Kean Unsure
Dem: 37 22 39
Rep: 11 57 29
Ind: 18 36 43
Kean is picking up more Dem crossover votes than Menendez, and is leading 2:1 among Independents.
Kean seems to be benefitting from the impression that NJ Democrats are corrupt (from which Senator/Governor Corzine was spared), and Kean should start seriously campaigning to win over some of the (very numerous) undecided voters, and possibly tie Senator Menendez to the corruption in the NJ Democratic party.
Menendez will be more "visible" in the newspapers than Kean due to his temporary spot in the Senate, but appointed Senators can be vulnerable due to "beginner's mistakes" which they need to defend before the voters after a short time in office. Jean Carnahan (D-MO) suffered from this when she served for her deceased husband in 2000, and was narrowly defeated by Jim Talent in 2002. Although this didn't seem to affect Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) after she was appointed to the Senate by her father, and later won an election in her own right in 2004. Murkowski did benefit from her previous experience as a State Senator, whereas Jean Carnahan did not have any political experience prior to being appointed to the Senate.
It will be up to Kean to point out Menendez' mistakes, or up to Menendez to avoid them.
Rasmussen reported recently of its own post showing Menendez with a comparable lead. And FDU showed both Kerry in 2004 and Corzine in 2005 in tight battles right to the end - where they both cruised to win the state on election day.
This isn't to say that Menendez is up right now - only that there's really little one can see right now. Though I'd take straight upodds on Menendez right now - you have a fairly liberal state whose not very supportive of either the President or the GOP-led Congress, the exact reverse situation as Montana - certainly this will be a race that will receive a lot of media attention come November.
If Kean still leads Menendez a few weeks before the election, I'm pretty sure he'll be dropped like Torricelli was dropped when it looked like he wasn't going to end up a winner.
After all, what good is precedent if you can't make use of it?
At this point, I would suggest that the dems will pick up PA and the GOP pick up MD and MN. I think NJ is a toss-up and no other state is in play for either party.
Though it's not worth me going on about claiming my current view (NJ leans Democratic, Minnesota leans Democratic, MD is a tossup but more things can go wrong for Democrats than Republicans, PA leans heavily Democratic, but is still in play), I should point out that neither party will treat MT, TN, RI or CT (depending on the primary challenge), FL, MO (where Talent is currently running behind), MS (where Lott is expected to retire) or NE as if it is out of play just yet. In a huge sweep for the Dems, they can take VA and NV (a victory that breaks 1994 proportions could possibly give them AZ). In a GOP sweep, they can pick up MI, WA, and maybe even VT.
While your prediction is certainly plausible, I certainly think it would be unwise to rely on it.
Lott announced yesterday that he is running.
Allen is so far ahead in VA that it is not eveb a dem dream.
None of the others you mentioned will be in play.
Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the state. He's a socialist, sure, but they see him as independent and honest. He'll probably win with 60% of the vote, and would likely still triumph even if the Democrats mounted a serious challenge.
Unsure winning this race doesn't it? Do you have anymore Unsure information? Is the campaign using slogans like Unsure is the Future or Unsure for Low Taxes? Those would resignate with the conservative base and maybe pull moderates from these other two guys solidly over to Unsure.