Quinnipiac Poll: Lautenberg too old; beats generic GOP candidate 40–33%

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Not that anyone should seriously believe that Frank Lautenberg will lose his re-election bid (especially considering the quality of GOP challengers looking at the race can be described as "piss poor" at best), but his numbers are still surprisingly low against a generic Republican.

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Lautenberg, who narrowly won a first term in 1982 by insisting that Republican Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick was too old for the job, would be 90 years of age by the end of his fifth term.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

And he'll be re-elected by at least twenty points.

That would make the first time, then, that he's ever won by more than ten.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Polls 16 months out in NJ are worthless.

What a coincidence—so is Senator Lautenberg!

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Polls 16 months out in NJ are worthless.

What a coincidence—so is Senator Lautenberg!

He's one of the best Senators, although he did vote for torture.

He is a cranky, partisan prick who shamelessly won office by smearing a distinguished stateswoman.

During his time in the Senate, he was consistantly outshined by the brilliant, socially-liberal-but-fiscally-moderate Bill Bradley.  And there's not a day of the week where I wouldn't take ten Jon Corzines over one Frank Lautenberg.  Even Bob Menendez, whom I'm not fond of, is a better politician.

His 2002 maneuverings to return to the U.S. Senate were disasterous, costing New Jersey tons of seniority because he was too eager to work out a fair deal with Daschle.  He pretty much worked out to the NJ Democrats' ninth choice to replace Torricelli on the ballot after Bradley, Florio, and the seven incumbent Congressmen turned it down.

The only person I can say I prefer Frank Lautenberg to is Bob Torricelli, and that's only because I think Bob Torricelli belongs behind bars.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Funny, then, that generic Republican led generic Democrat in 2002, then the two were about even in 2004, and generic Democrat led generic Republican in 2006. Lying to make your party look good generally isn't a good idea. If generic Democrat currently leads generic Republican, it's because, surprise, surprise, the country actually prefers the Democrats right now.

In New Jersey, though?  No effin way.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Unless Mike Doherty becomes the nominee (and I seriously doubt someone that conservative could win the GOP nomination in New Jersey), it doesn't seem likely that Lautenberg will win with a margin unlike his past races.

Now that soon-to-be-State Sen. Chuck Pennachio is looking into a run, I think he'll take the nod.  He's a pretty staunch conservative, but he's not crazy-right like Doherty is.  I don't know if the independently wealthy Anne Estabrook is going anywhere, but if she somehow becomes the nominee, she'll at least have enough cash to play with the big boys.

Doug Forrester, Chuck Haytaian, and Pete Dawkins were all terrible, unattractive candidates in their own rights.  Frank Lautenberg isn't getting more cuddly and loveable with time, that's for sure, so I don't see how his numbers wind up getting appreciably better if the caliber of GOP candidates remains constant.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Against Doherty, I'd be surprised if Lautenberg could win by more than 15%.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Let's rank the Republican candidates:

1.) Chris Christie
2.) Tom Kean Sr.
3.) Bill Baroni
4.) John Murphy
5.) Tom Kean Jr.


Yeah were pretty screwed

It's funny, whenever national Republicans seriously pursue a Senate seat in NJ, they always fall up short by the same slightly-less-than-10 point margin (1988, 1996, 2006); whenever they wind up punting the seat in the electoral pre-season (1990, 2000, 2002), they almost wind up winning the damn thing to spite themselves.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Franks more of a suprise than usual, however, I think 2002 can be explained due to "unforeseen circumstances"

Ridiculous.  Torricelli was on very unstable ground going into 2001 as his ethics woes started surfacing, but a post 9/11 bounce kept the credible challengers out of the way.  I did not see 2000 as a strong possibility for a GOP pick up, and I don't see 2008 a strong possibility for a GOP pick-up, but for the life of me, I couldn't understand why I was the only person in the state of New Jersey to think Bob Torricelli vulnerable in the slightest.

Why wouldn't Doherty become the nominee? The NJ GOP has given up on this race and rightfully so. Nobody cares who the nominee is.

Simply because I think Pennachio would be able to win over more primary voters with his more main stream conservatism.  The NJ GOP as a whole isn't that conservative: I believe its still majority pro-choice.