Some things, like the bad economy, our governor, and the Tea Party won't have gone away. We may have lost one Democratic congressman but our NJ legislature will not have changed much. It is in county and municipal elections where there may be more change and portent for the future. There will certainly be increased voter turn-out on the part of Republicans. The storm will leave an unpleasant trail for progressive politics in both the U.S. and New Jersey. For the moment GOTV is everything.
NJEA's Political Action Committee, NJEA PAC, has three ads running on local cable stations, promoting John Adler for Congress, Linda Greenstein for the LD-14 state senate seat, and Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney. who is running for re-election.
Adler's ad went up just yesterday the Greenstein and McNerney spots have been running since last Friday. Adler ad is below; Greenstein and McNerney ads, after the jump.
We are out today with our third and final poll of the NJ third congressional district race between Democratic incumbent John Adler and Republican challenger Jon Runyan. Oh, and don't forget purported "Tea Party" candidate Peter DeStefano. The upshot? It's tied. All locked up. 44-44. No space between the two candidates. At least among those we believe to be likely voters. And DeStefano - his 4-5 percent could be making the difference.
Professor Redlawsk discussess the cell phone issue (Rutgers polls land lines only), party unity (Democrats more united), donkeys (even Republicans bothered by their use as a tax dodge), the enthusiasm gap (helps Runyan), desire for an outsider (that would be Runyan) and DeStefano (helping Adler at 5%, but also provoking a backlash.)
Obviously the combination of two small Runyan leads and an exact tie is still a narrow Runyan lead, but it looks too close to call. Redlawsk suggests the key to Democratic victory is turnout of registered Democrats. That's why we see President Obama pushing supporters to volunteer to contact voters. You can even do it online.
The lead has switched in the race for New Jersey's 3rd Congressional District, according to the latest Monmouth University Poll. Republican challenger Jon Runyan now leads Democratic incumbent John Adler by 48% to 43% among likely voters in this district. In a poll released on September 30, Adler held a nominal 42% to 39% edge.
Runyan has a sizable 50% to 37% advantage among independents. Last month, Adler had a 43% to 32% edge with this voting bloc. Runyan has also widened his lead in the Ocean County portion of the district to 54% to 37%, and nearly evened the playing field in Burlington County and Cherry Hill - trailing Adler there by just 3 points, 44% to 47%.
This one is 1037 likely voters from October 22 to 25, 2010. Runyan has had a terrible campaign in which every reporter he encountered came away thinking he's too ignorant to be in Congress. But it looks like he's going to be carried in by the wave as Adler's small lead has become a deficit. Well, we've discussed Adler's behavior before and if I got to pick one guy to lose, it'd be him, but Democrats are facing a disaster nationwide.
Rob Andrews (D) leads Dale Glading (R) 63.4% to 21.9%.
Frank LoBiondo (R) leads Gary Stein (D) 57.3% to 20.0%
Note that there are demographic numbers (party, age, race, education) included in the PDFs and you can see the district-level favoriability of the Representatives, President Obama and Governor Christie. Obama is over 50% (if barely) in all three districts. "Christie's decision to promote Atlantic City" does well in all districts but best in NJ2, which (gasp) includes Atlantic City. In other results, I trust no one is surprised that voters think "jobs and economy" is the top issue.
Now for the big race: Adler (37.1%) trails Runyan (40.3%), the first time I have seen that result. These seem like low percentages so late in the election, but note the 4.1% margin of error is larger than the difference. Runyan is at 48% favorable so any Adler attack ads have not been effective enough. Zogby says more Republicans than Democrats will vote in this race.
DeStefano (Tea Party) still draws in 4.9%. Almost half (37%) of those voters would switch to Runyan if "they learned the New Jersey Tea Party endorsed Jon Runyan and not Peter DeStefano." Half (48%) would switch if told ("they learned that the Democrats recruited DeStefano in order to hurt Runyan's chances for election." I'd like to hear more from the 4 DeStafano voters who would then switch to Adler! Small number statistics to be sure but you can see why those Democratic operatives wanted DeStafeno on the ballot and Republicans want to play up the story as much as possible. The poll was taken 10/18 to 10/22 so there's a real possibility the DeStefano voters have learned the story since the poll was taken.
Who knew? In addition to Oprah, Newark Mayor Cory Booker is also good friends with Congressman John Adler. That's the way it was presented at an Adler rally today in Willingboro.
The event was well-attended by the party faithful with a slew of local Democratic celebrities on the dais. Local candidates were well-represented including Aimee Belgard, candidate for Burlington County Freeholder, and Jay Coltre, candidate for Burlington County Sheriff.
After the introductions, John Adler addressed the crowd of about 150 supporters. I've heard Adler speak many times, and this was by far his best performance. In the past, he has seemed a bit stiff to me, but today he was on top of his game. His ten-minute extemporaneous presentation was lively and he delivered a very positive message. The congressman reminded the crowd that he was there to serve them, not necessarily the party, and that he hoped to have another two years to help the President with his agenda. (I'm not sure how this is in accord with Adler's health care position, but this was a "feel good" rally and the audience seemed to buy it.)
The popular Newark mayor was the highlight of the afternoon. He spoke from the heart, telling the audience about his childhood in North Carolina, the influence that his father had on him, and the need to be partisan during elections, but non-partisan in governing. My favorite line was about Democrats' "sedentary agitation" - getting all worked up about Fox "News" and other demagoguery, but not proactively working toward fixing the system. Booker reminded me of another young politician - John F. Kennedy. His remarks were passionate and sincere. But unlike JFK, Booker was not born into wealth and his story was inspiring. When talking about the election of Governor Christie, he lamented about the low voter turnout in his own Newark election district, and implored the audience not only to vote this year, but to get the message out to their friends and co-workers.
The mayor concluded with excerpts from Langston Hughes' poem Let America Be America Again:
O, let America be America again-
The land that never has been yet-
And yet must be-
The land where everyone is free.
The land that's mine-
The poor man's, Indian's, Negro's,
ME-
If LGBT rights matter to you, you might wanna check out this website to see how your Congressman stacks up in the fight for gay rights.
I am in NJ's 3rd Congressional district where freshman Congressman John Adler turns in an impressive score of 92%. Looks like Adler gets an A in this class.
The State Democrats mashed up some of the NJ-3's more embarrassing statements of late. We have that video below.
Blue Jersey already ran Runyan's stunning answer on a general knowledge question that has stumped unprepared candidates like Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell before him. Amazing that none of his handlers saw the question coming and prepared him. Well, maybe not so amazing. But I hadn't seen his answer on loopholes that let companies ship jobs overseas. Wow. Just wow.
Seriously? Checking in on recent Supreme Court decisions is a general-knowledge question and it flummoxed both Sarah Palin and just days ago left Christine O'Donnell flapping, how did Jon Runyan manage not to see this coming and you know, brush up on civics 'n stuff.
John Adler, Harvard man, put the question to GOP opponent Jon Runyan in last night's debate for Millenium Radio on the campus of Ocean County College.
The Question (as asked by Adler): Can you give me a example from the last 10 or 15 years of a Supreme Court decision with which you strongly disagree. Adler even helpfully points out that the Supreme Court is a "different branch of government" than the one Runyan's running for. Video quality: not great. Runyan's answer: priceless.
After the jump, watch Sarah Palin & Christine O'Donnell's also-not-ready-for-primetime answers to the same damn question).
Medford is a town in Burlington County, and it's as Republican as you can get. Assemblyman Scott Rudder hails from there, and Chris Myers (John Adler's opponent in 2008) is its Deputy Mayor. Last year, Chris Christie carried the township with 60% of the vote in a three-way race.
So why at a public meeting this week were township residents clamoring for a tax increase?
find out below the fold
Monday night's debate between John Adler and Jon Runyan had its share of Tea Party folks posing their wedge issues during the question and answer session. One person asked each candidate if he would vote for their current House leader (Nancy Pelosi for Adler, John Boehner for Runyan) as Speaker if their party were in the majority. Luckily for Runyan, the answer was a no-brainer. But I was surprised at John Adler's response.
Adler is a skilled attorney and politician, and did not give a direct "yes" or "no" answer. Playing into the propaganda propagated by the Tea Party and Fox News, he stated that he felt that Speaker Pelosi was "divisive", and that troubled him. Where has he been?
The capstone legislation of the 111th Congress is, of course, the Affordable Care Act. The House Republicans were just a dead weight in its passage through the labyrinth of legislation. All GOP members abided by their loyalty oath and publicly stated that they would vote "no" on every one of the president's initiatives and obstruct this important bill, even though it is essentially the same bill that the Republicans promoted as an alternative to Hillary Clinton's health care initiative in the '90s. So, as leader, Speaker Pelosi needed to corral all of the Democrats - Liberals, Centrists, and Blue Dogs - to cobble together a bill that they could collectively support. Pelosi is a masterful politician and got the compromises necessary to pass the bill, despite 34 Democrats (including Adler) voting against it. Her ability to bring this diverse group of Democrats under the "big tent" is by no means divisive - on the contrary it is close to miraculous.
Adler's pandering to the right wing's anti-Pelosi (possibly anti-powerful woman) mantra indicates his willingness to swing toward what is required to be re-elected rather than toward what is right and decent. His remarks will encourage other conservative Democrats to mount a challenge to the leadership of one of the most effective Speakers in my lifetime.
Posted late last night, after the tense matchup. - promoted by Rosi
Tonight was the big showdown. The first (and probably only) public debate between the diminutive incumbent, Congressman John Adler, and the leviathan ex-footballer Jon Runyan.
There's an old saying: "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." The recent story linking NJ-03 "tea party" candidate Peter DeStefano with John Adler's campaign suggests a revision: "If you don't stand for something, you'll try to make us fall for anything."
According to the Courier Post, South Jersey Democratic operative Steve Ayscue and Adler Campaign Manager Geoff Mackler concocted a plot to get Peter DeStefano on the ballot under the slogan "NJ Tea Party" in an effort to draw votes away from Adler's republican opponent. The article alleges that on May 26, Ayscue and Mackler dispatched democratic volutneers to gather signatures for DeStefano. To be sure, there is nothing illegal about this, and Republicans do this kind of stuff allthetime. But that doesn't make it right.
Adler offered a weak-worded denial to the Philadelphia Inquirer: "I believe in my heart, my people have nothing to do with other candidates." Other than that, his campaign has said little about the allegations in the last few days, although he told Courier Post back in August, "I know we weren't part of it. Whatever they did -- I know what I do, and I hold my head high about what I do."
These meek denials are unconvincing. I'm disappointed that Adler would resort to a trick like this, and I'm even more disappointed that he would subsequently lie about it. But I'm not surprised. Adler campaigned as a progressive in 2008 and rode into office on Obama's coattails, but he abandoned his principles once he took the oath of office. Congressman Adler seems more concerned with appeasing the tea party and garnering campaigncontributions from Wall Street than voting in the interests of ordinary families in his district.
I would still rather see Adler win, because Runyan has hitched his wagon to the far-right tea party crowd. Runyan's campaign has been foundering because he can't articulate any reason for ordinary people to vote for him other than "I played right tackle for the Eagles, and even made the Pro Bowl once." He's taken thousands of dollars in tax breaks for raising a few donkeys and cutting a few trees (remember when the APP rode Ellen Karcher relentlessly for that?), and he doesn't even pay his taxes on time, even though he can afford it. But I don't know if I could bring myself to actually vote for Adler. I certainly wouldn't volunteer for him.
Instead, I'd give my time to Congressman Patrick Murphy and US Senate nominee Joe Sestak in PA, Congressman Rush Holt, or Congressman Frank Pallone.
If you haven't heard about the purported Tea Party candidate/"plant" story that broke today in South Jersey, welcome back to the planet. It's not especially pretty. Courier-Post:
Camellia sinensis. (It's Latin for Tea Plant)
On a balmy evening last May, about three dozen members of the South Jersey Young Dems convened at the Camden County Democratic Committee HQ (where) Freeholder Jeff Nash warned the assembled crowd of party volunteers and legislative aides that the sour economy would make the coming election season difficult.... To give (incumbent Congressman John) Adler an edge, (CCDC) recruited a then-unidentified man to run as a third-party candidate. That candidate would act as a conservative spoiler... But first he had to get on the ballot. With the filing deadline just weeks away, CCDC needed volunteers to hit the streets and collect signatures -- fast.
For what it's worth, I happen to live in NJ-3 and cast my vote (by mail) for Adler which I don't regret it. Also, I was a staffer on the historic 2008 campaign when Alder became the first Democrat to represent this district in over 125 years.
But I still have an uneasy feeling about how this story emerged. It's not illegal or uncommon for candidates to enhance their chances at the polls by helping get 3rd party candidates on the ballot. Mother Jones:
Republicans have a long history of such shenanigans, typically propping up the Green Party in recent election cycles. In Arizona, a Republican operative was particularly brazen in recruiting three homeless people to run for state office. And in Texas, Republicans spent a half-million dollars in an effort to put the Texas Green Party on the ballot in the state race-backed by sketchy operatives who also tried to help Ralph Nader in the 2004 race.
t's my personal philosophy that you win campaigns by whatever legal means you have at your disposal. If you don't use every legal tool you've got, you should be fired for campaign malpractice. So I guess I am glad they hatched this plan because I think Adler's opponent would be infinitely worse choice. You can bet your entire Franklin Mint red ceramic elephant collection the BurlCO GOP would do the same thing if they thought it'd give them an edge. Both play hard and play to win; Politics isn't tiddlywinks.
I would however deduct a few style points for how this plan was executed. If you're not gonna be totally discreet about your strategy you should at least own it right?
Consider this an open-thread. How does this look/smell from your perspective?
The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Press Media Poll (PDF) have given us the second poll of New Jersey's Third Congressional District this week, and it looks just like Eagleton's (41-39) poll :
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.)
Still, as the release below shows, Adler is in reasonable position for an incumbent Democrat in a marginal seat given the prevailing winds of 2010. He seems to be so because most likely voters in the district actually say they prefer experience over an outsider and because he is seen somewhat more favorably than is his opponent Republican Jon Runyan.
He has a detailed discussion of the likely voter screen. The likely voter sample is 41-39-6 for Adler-Runyan-DeStafano. Adler has a nine point lead 40-31-6 with registered voters. Turnout looks to be killing Democrats, as Obama's twitter feed suggested yesterday:
The other side is counting on you staying home this Nov. They're counting on your silence. They are betting on your apathy. Prove them wrong
Imagine this scenario. Freshman Democratic Congressman John Adler defeats footballer Jon Runyan in the November election. This is plausible because even though New Jersey's Third District has been gerrymandered to make it a "safe" district for the GOP, Adler has significantly more money with which to campaign, and Runyan is weak on the important issues. Now, also imagine that nationally, the Republicans take control of the House.
If this scenario were to come to pass, the best thing John Adler could do is to switch parties and become a Republican. Certainly, his first term voting record mirrors what would have been the voting pattern of his predecessor, long-term moderate GOP Congressman Jim Saxton. Like Adler, Saxton would probably have voted against health care and would have supported the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Also, given the fact that New Jersey's redistricting based on the 2010 census will be controlled by Chris Christie's cronies, it is a safe bet that this district will once again be gerrymandered favorably for Republicans. Switching parties would be a safe bet for Adler to retain his seat for several more terms under this scenario.
This sequence of events would not only benefit John Adler, but it would benefit the District as a whole. With a GOP majority in Congress, a Republican Adler would be better positioned to promote programs and earmarks that would bring jobs, funding, and other benefits to Burlington and Ocean Counties. He would still be a minority within his own (new) party because even though he votes more like a Republican, he has not partaken of the Tea Party Kool Aid. The more moderate Republicans who are sent to Congress (as opposed to Tea Party Republicans), the better off we all will be. And if Mr. Adler does switch parties after the election, it leaves room for a progressive Democrat to run in 2012, giving voters of the Third District a real choice.
I hope Adler wins; after all, he's (barely) the lesser of two evils. And I hope that the Democrats retain control of the House - otherwise this nation is in deep shit. But if the Democrats do lose, and Adler does win, we are all better off if he honestly admits that he's a moderate Republican and switches to the GOP.
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