Adler-Runyan Poll: Yes, it's a toss-up

by: Hopeful

Thu Sep 30, 2010 at 05:53:52 PM EDT

More voters approve than disapprove of the job freshman Congressman John Adler is doing, but enough voters are looking for change in Washington that challenger Jon Runyan is within striking distance.

With five weeks to go before Election Day, the poll of likely voters found the incumbent with a narrow lead within the poll's margin of error - 42% for Democrat Adler to 39% for Republican Runyan, with 13% undecided. Adler leads by 48% to 35% in the Burlington and Camden Counties portion of the district, while Runyan has a 44% to 34% advantage among Ocean County voters.

In related questions, Adler's job approval is 49-34.  DeStefano is at 4%.  Click through to see various breakdowns on issues, which are all pretty even.  (Also, see third poll below the break.)

Tom Jensen of PPP has a post noting that things may improve for Democrats nationally: Corzine narrowed the margin by 5 points as Democrats got more interested in the election:

Comparing our poll in mid-September to our final poll of the race Jon Corzine gained 8 points with Democrats while Chris Christie saw just a 3 point increase with Republicans. Obviously it wasn't enough in the end for Corzine to win but he gained a lot of ground and if the same thing happens for Dems who are down by 5 points right now rather than double digits it could put them over the top.

Many undecideds are Democratic-leaning in polls around the country, though I should also point you to this Jensen post on angry voters: Most who disapprove of both parties intend to vote GOP.  Back to Monmouth's poll, here's the pollster on undecided voters:

There are a number of crosscurrents in this race in determining which way undecided voters will eventually go. On one hand, they seem to have opinions that favor Jon Runyan. For example, they value change (53%) over experience (34%), are more likely to prefer GOP rather than Democrat control of Congress (41% to 18%), and have a negative view of the Democratic Party in general (32% favorable to 55% unfavorable). On the other hand, they tend to give John Adler good marks for his job performance (42% approve to 28% disapprove) and know little about the GOP challenger (71% have no opinion).

Correction: It's the third poll this week. Richard Stockton College found it 38-30 for Adler in a sample of 400. full poll (PDF) here.  Andrews leads 59-24. LoBiondo leads 59-25. Hat tip to Daily Kos.