Booker,Lonegan Meet In Debate As Biden Cancels Campaign Trip
Cory Booker and Steve Lonegan will meet in their second debate at Rowan University tonight as Vice President Joe Biden cancels a planned campaign trip to New Jersey.
The Senate debate inside Rowan's Pfleeger Concert Hall will air on both Philadelphia's WCAU TV and WNBC TV from New York starting at 7 p.m. The debate will be moderated by NBC10 anchor Jim Rosenfield, with a panel that will include NBC 4 New York anchor David Ushery and Philadelphia Inquirer Washington Correspondent Jonathan Tamari.
In their first debate, the former mayors attacked each other's positions on issues ranging from the government shutdown to abortion in a lively one-hour debate ahead of next Wednesday's special election to fill the remaining 15 months of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg's term.
Lonegan, 57, slammed Booker's character early by saying, "New Jersey needs a leader, not a tweeter," a reference to Booker's prolific use of social media. He tweets many times a day and has 1.4 million Twitter followers.
A new Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll, meanwhile, shows Booker maintaining a solid lead over his Republican opponent, Steve Lonegan, 45 to 29 percent, among registered voters.
Biden said he had to cancel Friday's trip because of the continuing federal government shutdown.
Kevin McArdle and the Associated Press contributed to this report