Dick Zimmer 
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Wed Dec 03, 2008 at 12:41:05 PM EST
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It sure takes a long time to get the final New Jersey numbers. When we last left the results election night, Obama led McCain in the unofficial count 57% to 42%, or 2.085 million to 1.545 million. The 2008 official election results are now available, and the final count is:
Barack Obama 2,215,422 57.27%
John McCain 1,613,207 41.70%
Total 3,868,237
The winning margin was 15.57 points. Blue Jersey's Poll of Polls predicted a 16.9 point win. Rasmussen's final New Jersey poll was the most accurate, getting the result correct at 57-42, although it did have the advantage of being the closest to election day. Ralph Nader, I suppose, can be happy that his 0.55% led the third-party challengers and rounds up to 1%.
Frank Lautenberg 1,951,218 56.03%
Dick Zimmer 1,461,025 41.95%
Total 3,482,445
There's two interesting thing here. First, 10% of the Presidential voters did not bother with the senate race. Second, Obama did better than Lautenberg. The final margin of 14.08% was comparable to the average poll result of 15%.
Overall, the pollsters did well.
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 at 02:10:01 PM EST
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Before the Professor and Maryann got their due in the Gilligan's Island theme song, they were known collectively as "the rest." And that's about how some of NJ's House races, and the Senate race, must have felt this year.
With the Obama campaign sucking up so much of the oxygen (and money, and energy, and ultimately the very PA-bound volunteers themselves), most of what was left over was focused on the "hot" races in NJ-3, NJ-5, and NJ-7. Like so often in the past, if you weren't running in one of the hot races, then you found yourself with scant attention being paid to your campaign.
In the case of Senator Lautenberg, and our 7 Democratic House incumbents, no news was good news. New Jersey's voters delivered a solid double-digit win to its senior Senator, and sent the Magnificent 7 back to Washington with an average margin of victory of over 40%. But for Congressional Challengers in NJ-2, NJ-4, and NJ-11, it was a different story altogether.
We look at each of these races in more detail below the fold.
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 at 11:31:10 AM EST
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From a Lautenberg/Menendez release, we learn that NJ will be getting additional Homeland Security funds:New Jersey will receive $75.2 million in federal funds for seven homeland security programs:$35,298,150 for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), which is a $310,150 increase from last year's funding level. UASI is a risk-based program that helps protect high-density and high-threat urban areas, such as Newark and Jersey City, by helping them prevent, respond to and recover from acts of terrorism.
$26,391,000 to the State Homeland Security Program, which helps municipalities in New Jersey plan, equip and train emergency first responders and other personnel to respond to acts of terrorism.
$7,504,254 to assist state and local governments in improving their emergency management capabilities.
$3,617,000 to the Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program, which helps law enforcement prevent terrorism by coordinating with individuals in non-law enforcement, government agencies and the private sector.
$1,433,469 to improve interoperable emergency communications, including communications in response to natural disasters, acts of terrorism and other man-made disasters.
$642,442 to Metropolitan Medical Response System, which helps towns and cities prepare for and respond to mass casualty events.
$357,481 to the Citizens Corps Program, which involves residents in prevention, preparedness and response to terrorism, natural disasters and other threats, such as crime and public health. Dick Zimmer probably would have called this pork. From the recent campaign:Lautenberg pledged to seek additional federal money for New Jersey to help state and local governments avoid deficits. Zimmer said the best way to ease the financial crisis is "to elect somebody who makes sure we don't spend one dollar more than is absolutely necessary."
Lautenberg prides himself in bringing home money for mass transit, highways and other public projects. Zimmer is opposed to pork barrel spending, including money that would come to New Jersey. While they were proud of the funding, Lautenberg and Menendez also had this note in the release:However, the Senators reiterated their call for all federal security funds to be based on risk - not subject to formulas that guarantee state minimums regardless of risk. Imagine that, making sure funding for Homeland Security is distributed based on risk. What a novel concept. Until we reach that point, well done Senators.
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Thu Nov 06, 2008 at 06:36:43 PM EST
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It's more than a little backward how much state political power is defined at the county level, when outside of Hudson, most voters have rather weak identification with their county. But that's the way it is. And power comes in part from how many votes you can deliver.
At the old Middlesex County victory gatherings I used to attend, status was based on the margin your town brought in. The Freeholder (or whatever race the bigwigs were concerned with) total for the Democrats minus that for the Republicans. I suppose it works similarly at the state level with counties, at least sometimes. Better might be to compare what you delivered with the most and least that your town could have delivered, but that was too complicated and subjective.
Another source of power is the ability to have your candidates win a state-wide primary. That would be based more on the raw number of Democrats in your county.
And if you want to see which counties ought to have the most progressive government and political culture, you can look at the percentage of the vote that goes Democratic.
Now is a good chance to see how Democratic the counties are, because in Lautenberg-Zimmer, we've just had about the most generic state-wide race imaginable. Neither candidate had a significant local base. Neither candidate had a controversial or shining personality. It was a Democratic year, but Lautenberg's age probably balances that. So the 2008 NJ-Sen race gives us an unusually good window to voters' proclivities, independent of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their Freeholders or anyone else.
Below the fold are tables with the counties ranked from 1 to 21 by each of the three measures above, using the Senate returns current on the Daily Kos tracker as of this afternoon. I suppose a few more votes may yet trickle in, so these totals may not be final.
EDIT: fixed first table to include Bergen only once and to include Essex
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Mon Nov 03, 2008 at 09:25:45 AM EST
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I didn't see this covered in any of the news stories about the debate Saturday night between Dick Zimmer and Frank Lautenberg, but Lautenberg was asked directly by Bob Ingle if he would support repealing the Patriot Act. Lautenberg responded, "As I see it now, I find it hard to justify its existence." It is at 38 minutes, 45 seconds of the video here. 
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Sun Nov 02, 2008 at 01:42:35 AM EDT
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The final Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll for this election season (PDF) finds Barack Obama enjoying his largest lead over John McCain yet -- 21 points. Patrick Murray observes that this may the biggest win since Reagan beat Mondale by 21. The average of the last seven polls, by seven different pollsters, now moves to 54.6 - 37.4 for a 17.2 point lead, so this is not crazy talk. Obama leads on the economy in this poll 56-31, and as he put it yesterday morning:
That's why I'm talking about the economy. That's why he's spending these last weeks calling me every name in the book.
49% of voters agree with Obama and blame McCain for the negative tone, while only 18% go the other way.
Murray's entry for best quote by a pollster is this:
To borrow from an old saying about Frank Sinatra, it's Obama's world this year and Frank Lautenberg is lucky to live in it.
Lautenberg leads 50-31, but only 36% view him favorably. 44% have no opinion of him. Zimmer's favorable-unfavorable days before the election is an astonishing 18-8!
There were 801 likely voters in the sample, for an estimated margin of error of 3.5%.
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Sat Nov 01, 2008 at 04:16:38 PM EDT
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I know everyone is waiting around to see the Frank Lautenberg/Dick Zimmer debate tonight at 8pm on NJN. This is the moment Dick Zimmer has waited for and you can watch through the NJN live stream. Here's what they say:NJN News presents the US Senate Debate between incumbent Democratic US Senator Frank Lautenberg and his Republican challenger Dick Zimmer. Kent Manahan, NJN News anchor, will moderate the debate. A panel of reporters will question the candidates. The debate will take place in the NJN studios in Trenton. The debate will be rebroadcast on Sunday, November 2 at 11:30 am on NJN, and can also be seen on WHYY on Sunday at 5 pm and WNET Sunday at 11:30 pm. The debate is cosponsored by NJN Public Television & Radio, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Gannett NJ Newspaper Group. There will be three journalists on the panel, one from each organization.
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Fri Oct 31, 2008 at 01:09:42 PM EDT
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The new SUSA poll of New Jersey shows Obama with a 10 point lead, actually a bit disappointing compared to other polls. This is McCain's first poll above 40% since early October, and again Obama has failed to hit 55%. On the other hand, the previous best pollster comment, Marist saying Obama enjoyed a "lovefest" in New Jersey, has been superceded by SUSA's headline "Democrats Obama, Lautenberg Win in Garden State." Win? I guess we shouldn't expect any more New Jersey polls out of them.
The New Jersey polls since October 15 show:
Obama 52 McCain 42 SUSA
Obama 53 McCain 35 FDU
Obama 54 McCain 38 R2000
Obama 53 McCain 38 SV
Obama 56 McCain 39 Marist
Obama 59 McCain 36 Qunnipiac
Obama 55 McCain 38 Monmouth/Gannett
It doesn't really matter how you combine those polls. Pollster.com's estimator says 53.3-38.9. A simple average gives 54.6 - 38.0. The median gives 54-38. Well, I guess we can all understand the SUSA headline.
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Sat Oct 25, 2008 at 08:10:34 PM EDT
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The latest Marist poll of New Jersey puts Barack Obama ahead by 17 among likely voters, a big improvement over the 3 point lead in their September poll. As for approval ratings, they actually use the word "lovefest" to describe Obama's 65-30 favorable-unfavorable score. There were 628 likely voters (MoE 4%) for the poll taken 10/20 and 10/21. You'll have to click through to see the registered voters, but there's not much difference. This poll adds to the evidence that Obama is now at or above 55% -- No wonder we don't have the usual stories of Republicans getting their hopes up.
51% of voters view Sarah Palin unfavorably, worse than her running mate who gets 44% unfavorable.
Lautenberg leads 48-41 among likely voters. There's no evidence of change since September. Only half of each side's voters say they strongly support their guy, which I blame on the lack of visible campaigning.
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Thu Oct 23, 2008 at 01:39:51 AM EDT
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The latest Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll (PDF) shows that only 12% of voters have been paying close attention to the senate race and 56% of voters have no opinion of Dick Zimmer. As Patrick Murry says, "With just two weeks to go, the incumbent's stealth campaign appears to be succeeding." The poll of 723 likely voters finds Lautenberg at 52% and Zimmer at 36%.
My deep thought is that we should be grateful to Rob Andrews for his primary run, because otherwise this might be the most boring senate election ever. The Republicans haven't even come up with a timely investigation.
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Wed Oct 08, 2008 at 11:10:01 AM EDT
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FDU PublicMind has a new poll out. If your name rhymes with "Rick Dimmer"; then it might just be bad enough news to make you cry.
With under a month to go before the election, 35% of respondants had never heard of the Generic Republican Opponent (GRO). That included 23% of Republicans. Only 17% of voters had a favorable opinion of the GRO. 36% had heard of him, but had no opinion.
That makes two-thirds of the respondants who had either not heard of the GRO or didn't know what to think of him. The only thing things could get worse would be, as they say in Louisiana, he were caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy.
If the election were held today, Lautenberg would get 50% of the vote (including leaners) to 34% for the GRO. While this is sure to be news that makes our senior Senator relax on weekends, the problem is that... well, it makes him relax on weekends. I haven't even seen a yardsign. The net effect of that is to stunt any sort of coattails Barack Obama might get started at the top of the ballot.
I've not been overly impressed with the campaign Linda Stender has run this year - especially considering how strong she ran in '06. But John Adler is working hard, as is Dennis Shulman. Josh Zeitz and Dave Kurkowski and Tom Wyka are all working their butts off, and they could use support from the top of the ticket. But they aren't getting it - and it looks like they may as well give up on any hope that they will.
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Sun Oct 05, 2008 at 05:43:20 PM EDT
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I still don't think that the voting public fully understands the issue of earmarking in Congress in terms of all the intricacies in the process. That hasn't stopped candidates from trying to demagogue the issue as a standard talking point of campaigns this election cycle. Dick Zimmer has repeatedly made this statement on earmarks: "I don't want to play the game better; I would shut it down," Zimmer said. In the past, I have had Dick Zimmer respond to himself on this issue. This is what I wrote on Sept 7:Very strong response on how terrible earmarks are, until he starts talking out of the other side of his mouth to defend the earmarks of one Rodney Frelinghuysen:He said the pledge he signed "does not say I will not sponsor earmarks. It says earmarks should be transparent, they should be justified."
Zimmer said that from what he sees, Frelinghuysen's earmarks comply with that criteria. You can call that the GOP bond. So we've already pointed out the hypocrisy of Zimmer's position, but today we get Frank Lautenberg responding to the statement that Zimmer wants to shut down the process:"I hope he will tell the truth and say he will work very hard to make sure there is no extra money brought back to New Jersey." The ironic thing is that while Zimmer goes around with his dollar bill demonstration talking about how little New Jersey gets back from the Federal government, he proudly touts (sometimes) that he will not do anything to help change that. Rather than fix what has become a broken process by providing more transparency and other protective measures, Zimmer wants to score political points which completely contradict with another standard talking point in his stump speech. And he wonders why he isn't getting any traction.
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Sun Sep 07, 2008 at 12:14:06 PM EDT
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Barack Obama called shenanigans on Sarah Palin's laughable, hypocritical statement on earmarks:But, you know, when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can't just make stuff up." Maybe Dick Zimmer and Sarah Palin have been talking, because the same statement applies.Zimmer has run his campaign on the evils of earmarks attacking Frank Lautenberg for just about everything, except for the things Lautenberg hasn't gotten for NJ, which Zimmer attacks for as well. There's a story in the Daily Record today about how Dick Zimmer and Tom Wyka agree on getting rid of earmarks, only they don't. Wyka is consitent, while you can judge Zimmer's position for yourself. First, he says this: Zimmer doesn't think the earmark game looks good, either, saying, "I don't want to play the pork-barrel game better; I want to shut it down." Very strong response on how terrible earmarks are, until he starts talking out of the other side of his mouth to defend the earmarks of one Rodney Frelinghuysen:He said the pledge he signed "does not say I will not sponsor earmarks. It says earmarks should be transparent, they should be justified."
Zimmer said that from what he sees, Frelinghuysen's earmarks comply with that criteria. You can call that the GOP bond. So Dick Zimmer hates earmarks and wants to end them altogether, unless he decides they are ok later in the same article? Maybe Dick Zimmer was against earmarks before he was for them. I guess he's not opposed to all earmarks, just those he designates as not important (i.e. ones by Democrats).
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Mon Aug 25, 2008 at 01:23:27 PM EDT
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Monday morning at the Inverness meant the first New Jersey Delegation Breakfast. Governor Corzine, Senator Lautenberg, and Congressman Rothman all roused the audience with their speeches. Lautenberg offered a particularly scathing criticism of his Republican Senate opponent, Dick Zimmer, who he suggested would roll back gun laws and threaten New Jerseyans' health care. Rothman emphasized unity in his speech, acknowledging Clinton's ten-point victory in New Jersey February and empathizing with her supporters.
But it was the final speaker of the morning, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who brought the crowd to its feet with a fiery defense of the Garden State. Booker recounted the state's key role in the American Revolution, and he highlighted several New Jersey firsts, among them the first light bulb, the first football game, and the first electric guitar. Booker closed by addressing the delegation's lousy seating at the convention center:
"Let them seat us in the back, because New jersey is loud, we are proud, we can be heard above the crowd."
Newark Mayor/Obama delegate Cory Booker. More pictures below the fold.
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Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 04:15:15 PM EDT
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Dick Zimmer tried to jack up Frank Lautenberg over a 1992 law that changed the rules for public-private hybrid mortgage holder Fannie Mae that Zimmer opposed and Lautenberg backed.
Zimmer stood in front of a foreclosed home in Linden railing against Lautenberg for it, but made one small mistake:
Zimmer selected the house where he held today's press conference from Fannie Mae's web site, and did not know the story of how it came to be in possession of Frannie Mae.
If you're gonna blame your opponent for something, you have to know what that something is. Not knowing why the house was foreclosed on kind of blunts the whole story.
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Wed Jul 09, 2008 at 03:06:24 PM EDT
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Good news from Rasmussen Reports on the New Jersey Senate Race. Frank Lautenberg leads Dick Zimmer 49-36, or 50-37 when "leaners" are included. Women provide Lautenberg with his huge lead, breaking for him 55-29. The margin of error is 4.5%.
The outlook for 2009 is somewhat different...
Ratings for New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine (D) continue to slip. Just 27% of voters give him good or excellent ratings, while 40% say he is doing a poor job. Last month, his numbers were 29% good or excellent, and 37% poor.
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Sat Jun 28, 2008 at 02:58:12 PM EDT
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Obviously there is plenty of time for Dick Zimmer to raise his name ID in his campaign against Frank Lautenberg, but you can file today's Star Ledger headline under not the press they were looking for...Zimmer's absence from office leaves voters asking, 'Who?' I guess the Zimmer campaign would spin this and say the upside is that it could be worse. I agree, it could be October, they could know him and have decided they hate him.
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Thu Jun 26, 2008 at 01:25:17 PM EDT
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Back when Dick Zimmer was in Congress, I guess he didn't have to worry about the formatting of his press release calling him a liar. From the cut-and-paste attack on Senator Lautenberg for voting against telecom immunity: Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Well, that about sums up the rest of the press release. Normal - false, false, false.
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Thu Jun 26, 2008 at 06:39:19 AM EDT
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A Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll has Frank Lautenberg (D) leading Dick Zimmer (R) by a 40-26 margin -- and another 34 percent wandering in the wilderness.
Even with a 14 point lead it's not all tea roses here, with Lautenberg still under 50 percent in a two candidate poll.
Zimmer is unknown to more than a third of Republicans even after a contested primary. That could be good news -- he's got a lot of folks who could move to him -- or bad news since as a former Congressman and current statewide candidate he's still unknown.
Of course, it's also just June and these polls don't mean much. In September things start to heat up and polls start to more accurately reflect an engaged electorate.
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Wed Jun 18, 2008 at 07:15:51 PM EDT
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Republican US Senate candidate Dick Zimmer backpedaled today on his support for McCain's offshore drilling plan. Earlier this week, Zimmer had briefly flirted with certain aspects of McCain's plan, even suggesting to a Star Ledger reporter that he might support "deep water" drilling off the Jersey Shore (emphasis added):
Lautenberg's Republican challenger, former congressman Dick Zimmer, said, "Regardless of where the drilling takes place, I'll oppose it if it poses a risk to the Jersey Shore." He said there might be some deep-water drilling that would not pose that risk and he needed to see more details of McCain's plan.
What a difference a day makes:
"I am strongly against any drilling or exploration off the New Jersey coast or in any area that poses a risk to our beaches."
Zimmer realized his support for McCain's offshore oil drilling plan put him far outside of the mainstream, not just for New Jersey, but even for New Jersey Republicans. New Jersey simply won't buy the McCain-Bush offshore drilling policy, whether it's John McCain, George W. Bush, or Dick Zimmer selling it.
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