2009 New Jersey Governor's Race

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Assemblyman Richard Merkt(R) has already formed an exploratory committee and is running.

As, yes, the token Morris County politician. For some reason, there's always a Morris County politician in Republican primaries, and he always gets third.

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Chris Daggett, former Kean deputy chief of staff, running as an Independent.

http://daggettforgovernor.com/wordpress/about/

I'm kinda worried that all of these independents running are going to take away the Anti-Corzine vote from Christie.

From his "issues" page:

"We keep losing middle-income families to Pennsylvania because our property taxes are too high, retirees to Florida and Wyoming because of high income and estate taxes, and young people because they cannot find jobs or afford homes."

Which one of these things doesn't belong?

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Probably just knows someone personally who is moving to Wyoming.

Yeah, I just thought it was amusing. It's totally inane, of course.

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There's little reason think that NJ independents in 2009 will do any better than independents in 2005 or 2001.

The independent in 2005, the schools guy, Castillo, I think, had signs all over the place around here. He didn't get any votes, but he had tons of signs.

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Christie 45%
Corzine 38%

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1299.xml?ReleaseID=1288

Christie continues to slip...

Watch as the next poll shows something like Christie - 43%  Corzine - 40%

Continues to slip? It's called statistical noise. The only difference in the internals of the poll is that Corzine went from 69% of Democrats to 72%.

February 4- He's at 44%, Corzine is at 38%
March 12- He's at 46%, Corzine is at 37%
April 22- He's at 45%, Corzine is at 38%

Again, it's all just statistical noise.

Emphasis mine. That's what the Republicans need to watch out for. Aside from Strategic Vision, Christie has not polled out of the 45% range, which is still a danger zone for NJ Republicans no matter how big their lead is. NJ polls always show much higher undecideds than in most states, and NJ undecideds have a historical tendency to break ridiculously strongly for the Democrats (6 to 1 in 2005). That might end this year... but it might not, too.

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Christie only leading Lonegan by seven points? Can you guys say "disaster?"

If Christie somehow loses the primary, it might be the most embarrassing defeat for the NJ GOP in modern times and Corzine will win the General by thirty points.

Nine points, not seven, and fifteen without leaners. But Lonegan is gaining ground; he was twenty-one points behind in March and twenty-seven points back in February (both of those without leaners). Lonegan plays well in this sort of climate in a Republican primary, but he has very low name recognition. Still, I'm surprised, and I might have to say that the primary will be competitive. Christie doesn't really inspire his supporters to vote the way Lonegan does even though Lonegan's appeal is much more marginal.

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That's true, unless it drags him to the right and forces him to advertise how conservative he is.

That's the reason Christie is basically trying to pretend Lonegan doesn't even exist. He doesn't even refer to him by name.

Which is the wrong strategy, IMO. Yes, addressing Lonegan is tough on Christie from the perspective that it drags him to the right. But he's missing the very appeal of Lonegan in that strategy, which is as an insurgent campaigner against the indifferent establishment. Appearing, well, indifferent, just energizes support of Lonegan. Turnout in the primary is not going to be high, so Lonegan is by no means completely out of the race despite his limited appeal. Christie just needs to reassure conservative voters that he's more than an empty suit on the issues they care about (which, come to think of it, doesn't even really require that he acknowledge Lonegan in the race).

There are certainly conservative issues which would make him popular without preventing him from winning statewide. Talk about increasing punishments for violent criminals or something. Christie doesn't have any active appeal right now except to the reformists, who are not anywhere close to a majority of the GOP primary electorate. He needs to give himself a bit broader primary appeal in order to guarantee he holds off Lonegan.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyZQYO2Eq34

omg it's on.

I almost wish Lonegan were elected governor. He'd be a riot.

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Or something, anyway.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/23/venezuela.island/index.html

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Smith isn't all that conservative other than foaming at the mouth whenever stem cell research is mentioned. You might be thinking of Garrett.

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Smith isn't all that conservative other than foaming at the mouth whenever stem cell research is mentioned. You might be thinking of Garrett.

Well he is pro-life to the max, is what I meant.

Garrett hasn't endorsed anyone if I'm not mistaken.

Because is the really conservative one. National Journal rankings (warning: extreme bias) actually put Smith as one of the most centrist Republicans. Not a huge surprise considering he's a (non-Dixiecrat) defector.

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You seriously think that Lonegan is gaining based off one poll? Lonegan still has little name-recognition in the state(less than Christie) and has lower favorables among Republicans in that Quinnipiac poll(Christie is at 56-4, Lonegan is at 35-4). If that many Republicans still don't know who you are, I would be hesistant to call that "gaining ground". Also, who's to say that Quinnipiac even has a realistic likely voter model?

That's the whole point. Lonegan gains as his name recognition goes up; Christie does not (in the primary, GE is something else). Obviously Lonegan is battling low name recognition, among other things, and there's a high chance he won't win that battle. But it's not clear that he wouldn't win if he and Christie were on equal footing, name-rec wise, and that leaves Christie in danger of a push from Lonegan.

Anyway, Lonegan has a little over a month to pump up his name rec, which is both a long time and no time at all. We'll see.

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It begins... lol.

Undecideds are too high even for NJ, and Monmouth had Corzine ahead in their last poll in January (although everyone else did in January, too, IIRC).

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Eh, I'm not as impressed with him as I'd like to be.  Looks like the same old, same old.  Only he has no real positions.  I'm not as optimistic about this as I was.  Even if he wins, it's going to be the same mess and he'll lose reelection to someone worse than Corzine.

Basically this. People don't like Corzine's plans to fix the budget. They're painful. So they're voting for Christie, who has no plans to fix the budget, or really any plans at all. Wonderful.

Of course, no one wants to address the real issues. they just want to whine about property taxes, which have nothing to do with the state government and frankly that the state government can't do anything to fix in the long-term. (The real solution would be for municipalities to start taking the initiative and merging back together. The state government can't--or won't--force them to do so, but it's what has to be done.)

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Anyway, Joe the Plumber is campaigning for Lonegan. LOL.

http://www.politickernj.com/max/29510/joe-plumber-revs-lonegan-crowd

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Quinnipiac will be releasing(presumably) their last poll tomorrow before the primary.

Why presumably their last? They could definitely get another one out the weekend after Memorial Day. Dodgy time to be polling, after Memorial Day, but then again the primary is also at a dodgy time to be voting.

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Saw my first sign on someone's property today. A Christie sign. But of course it was in an ultra-rich area of Englewood Cliffs, a Republican island in the Democratic sea of southeastern Bergen.

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Saw my first sign on someone's property today. A Christie sign. But of course it was in an ultra-rich area of Englewood Cliffs, a Republican island in the Democratic sea of southeastern Bergen.

I was out in Warren County the other day and must have seen 100 Christie signs, it was crazy.  Haven't seen much else besides on the highway on and off ramps.

Signs on public property are pretty much meaningless. Of course, the primary has been so low-key that private property signs are too few to be meaningful, either.

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I know the yard sign wars are pretty meaningless but if they did mean anything, the presence I've seen in South Jersey (on properties, too, by the way) is alarmingly positive for Lonegan.

I saw one Christie sign on a property (it was in Sea Isle City - where I vacation). One. Compare that to about twenty I saw on properties for Lonegan.

Turnout better not be pathetically low because Lonegan could eek out a narrow win. I was told that the polls in 2001 had Franks destroying Schundler and we know how that turned out...

Interesting. Around here, which I would expect to be Lonegan's base, there's nothing. I mean, the Italian vote does tend to follow the party line, and the Italian vote is basically synonymous with the Republican vote in south Bergen except in some pockets of Orthodox Jews or Russians, but I would still expect Lonegan to have a lot of support in and around Bogota. But I haven't actually been to Bogota for a few months even though it's only about two miles away, so maybe he has the town plastered with signs.

If I have time tomorrow, I'll drive over and take a look around.


Anyway, turnout is impossible to gauge, and made more difficult for me by the fact that the hot contests locally are the Democratic primaries for mayor and city council (tantamount to election), which have completely overshadowed the Republican gubernatorial primary.

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The GOP will always poll strong in the early stages in NJ, but in the very end a Democrat will win.  I hope Obama appoints Corzine to something though.

Not poll ahead in 10 straight polls...

In fact, no other candidate before Christie in the last 10 years has polled ahead of the Democrat in more than 1 poll, Christie has led 10 straight.

Kean was definitely ahead for more than one poll. I wasn't paying as much as attention for earlier races as I was away at college, but I suspect others polled ahead frequently, too.

Still, Christie is definitely in a stronger position than past Republicans, although his margin has stopped widening and contracted a bit (a settling at this point, I think, not a turnaround for Corzine at least so far). The ads accusing Christie of sleaze are pretty potent and I think exactly what Corzine needs, strategically; he's disliked already, but if he can destroy Christie's white-knight image, the normal pattern of voting for the less-hated party will reassert itself. But the race will only get interesting after the primaries; or not, if Lonegan wins. Although Lonegan would be entertaining in similar fashion to a train wreck.

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Panic over that Rasmussen poll is pointless.  Low turnout primaries in New Jersey do not favor the conservative, they favor the organizational candidate.

When those undecideds show up, they're just going to default to the organizational line with all the candidates whose names they recognize and support.

"Oh, there's the Christie-O'Scanlon-Cassagrande line. And there's some other guy Lonegan who's positioned by himself, alone, at the bottom of the ballot."  *click*

Bottom of the ballot? At least in Bergen, the lines are organized vertically (so Lonegan would appear next to Christie, not below him).

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Anyway, anyone know anything about the nobodies running against Corzine in the Democratic primary? I'm voting in the Democratic primary for all sorts of important local races, so it would be good to know something about the gubernatorial primary even though it's a foregone conclusion.

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Bergmanson says that he witnessed the US government planning the 9/11 attacks.

I don't know much about Boss.

Boss ran for the Senate and president last year as an independent. I don't remember his stances.

Oh right, he's the one whose party line was "Vote Here" or something.

Anyway, re: Verplanck, a very obvious tactical ploy but still a potentially effective one. And I do like her.

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Honestly, it might help some candidates more than hurt. For example, I have no idea who the bottom candidates are, but since they are running on the line with Christie I will end up voting for them. Having "the line" is extremely beneficial.

Amusing. My rule is to never vote the line at the bottom. They're always the trashiest, most corrupt candidates. You don't get nutters running for local office off the line; they always run for Senate or Governor or President.

Anyway, I think I may not vote for any candidate on the line this time around. Bergmanson seems like a good protest vote home, and for local elections I'm voting for a non-line slate for mayor and city councilman at-large. Of course "the line" is on Column 4 in Bergen, IIRC (maybe Column 3, I'll find out tomorrow), so it's not the first group listed on the ballot.

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For the record, there was no one but poll workers at the voting booths when the wife and I voted this morning. At 7:15, we were voters three and four! (Polls had been open for an hour and fifteen minutes.)

Then again, I would be shocked if there were a triple-digit number of votes from my election district in the Republican primary anyway. It was 89% Obama.