FDU

Frank Lautenberg leads Dick Zimmer 50%-34% in the race for U.S. Senate: Getty Images Photo
The election is less than a month away, but 71% of New Jersey voters have still not heard of or have no opinion of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dick Zimmer, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll released today.

The poll of 760 likely voters puts incumbent Democrat Frank Lautenberg ahead of Zimmer 50% to 34%. 14% of voters are undecided.

“Zimmer jumped late into a fractious primary and won, but he has gotten no traction since,” said pollster Peter Woolley.

Quinnipiac: Obama 48%, McCain 45%: Getty Images Photo
The contest between Barack Obama and John McCain in New Jersey is too close to call, with a new Quinnipiac University poll showing the battle for the state's fifteen electoral votes at 48%-45% among likely voters.  Obama led McCain by ten percentage points, 51%-41% in an August Quinnipiac poll.

This is the fourth independent poll within the last week to show New Jersey as an emerging battleground state in the presidential campaign.  A Monmouth University/New Jersey poll released this morning shows Obama leading by 8 points, and a Marist College poll released Friday night had identical numbers to Quinnipiac, 48%-45%. A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll from last week had Obama up by six points.

“The McCain-Palin ticket has narrowed the gap dramatically, but it will take more than this post convention bounce for the Republicans to win in true blue New Jersey.  The upcoming debates probably will provide a clue to whether Sen. McCain can build on his current momentum, or whether the tide will turn back to the Democrats,” said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. 

Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: Getty Images Photo
Evidence of John McCain’s convention bounce might have turned up in New Jersey, but that momentum hasn’t translated to former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer’s U.S. Senate campaign. 

According to a Fairleigh Dickinson PublicMind poll released today, incumbent Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) leads Zimmer 46% to 35%. 

That’s roughly the same margin that Zimmer has trailed Lautenberg by in several other polls taken during the summer. 

“All of the attention has been on the national race,” said FDU pollster Peter Woolley.  “And both of the state’s U.S. Senate candidates have been off-stage in this year’s presidential drama.”

A new Quinnipiac poll shows Gov. Jon Corzine with upside-down approval numbers: Getty Images Photo
Democratic State Chairman Joseph Cryan said that the Governor’s 38% approval rating in the Quinnipiac poll released today was “not unexpected.”

Corzine is undertaking some tough but necessary reforms in the state budget, Cryan said.

“The Governor has been dealing with the economic problems in the state. He’s not doling money out. We think that people ultimately are going to respect what we’re doing and it will put us in a positive position next year,” he said.

Nor was Cryan surprised by that the email controversy between Gov. Corzine and union leader Carla Katz, an ex-girlfriend, hasn’t stoked the public fury – despite GOP Chairman Tom Wilson’s push to make the emails public.

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Voters have no idea who the Republican U.S. Senate candidates are, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released this morning. 84% of voters have never heard of State Senator Joseph Pennacchio, 87% don’t recognize Anne Evans Estabrook, and 89% have no idea who Murray Sabrin is. Among Republicans, the number is similarly dismal: 82% haven’t heard of Pennacchio, 83% don’t know who Sabrin is, and 87% are unfamiliar with Estabrook.

“No brand name has entered the race for the Republicans,” said Peter Woolley, a political scientist and director of the poll. “In part, that is a reflection of poor prospects for the Republican Party nationally which is bogged down with an unpopular President, an unpopular war, and a softening economy.”

The four-term incumbent, Democrat Frank Lautenberg, is known by 85% of New Jersey voters; he has a 42%-23% favorability rating.

“He’s a brand name and they like him.” Woolley said.

Two polls show John McCain leading Rudy Giuliani in New Jersey’s February 5 presidential primary: a Neighborhood Research poll has McCain leading 31%-26%, with 18% for Mitt Romney, 9% for Mike Huckabee, and 4% for Ron Paul; and a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll has McCain ahead of Giuliani by a 23%-29% margin, with 10% for Romney and 7% for Huckabee.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama, 41%-27%, with 8% for John Edwards in the FDU poll.

Quinnipiac University will release their poll this morning.

Fairleigh Dickinson University's The Public Mind

Not wearing a seatbelt and exceeding the speedlimit has not hurt Gov. Jon Corzine's approvals, according to a new Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released this morning. Corzine has a 58%--28% approval rating among New Jersey voters -- up slightly from a March FDU poll.

But Richard Codey, who served as Acting Governor during Corzine's hospitalization, is still the most popular politician in the state: he has a 73%-9% favoribility rating.

"What can you say?" said FDU Prof. Peter Wooley. "People like this guy. If he could sing, he'd be a rock star." Codey had a 66%-19% approval rating for his stint as Governor.

Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that New Jersey was not necessarily a blue state. "New Jersey is not that liberal of a state among whites. Whites are 50-50 Republican and Democratic," Cassino said. "It is considered a blue state because of its large minority population."