Booker Has Comfortable Lead in NJ Senate Race

Quinnipiac University is out with a poll today of likely voters showing Democrat Cory Booker enjoying a sizable lead over his opponent Republican Steve Lonegan in New Jersey's race for U.S. Senate.  The election is scheduled for tomorrow.

“New Jersey’s in the habit of electing Democrats to the US Senate and in the new Quinnipiac University poll that’s what it looks like in this crazy October election,” said Mickey Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Booker is up by 14 points over Lonegan, 54 to 40 percent.”

New Jersey hasn’t elected a Republican to the US Senate since 1972.

In today’s survey, white voters support Lonegan over Booker by a margin of 50 to 47 percent. African-American voters back Booker 93 to 1 percent. Women favor Booker 58 to 36 percent while men back the Democrat 50 to 45 percent. Independent voters are split 46 to 46 percent.

Five percent of likely voters are still undecided and 4 percent of those who chose a candidate say there’s a “good chance” they will change their mind by tomorrow.

“The liberal mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, holds onto the double-digit lead over the conservative former mayor of Bogota, Steve Lonegan, that we measured when we first looked at likely voters,” explains Carroll.

From October 10 – 14, Quinnipiac surveyed 1,696 New Jersey likely voters in the special U.S. Senate election, with a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points.