For such a big guy he's got an awfully teensy (warchest)
The Jon Runyan Campaign just filed its latest FEC report. Considering he's a vulnerable 1st-term incumbent in an outrageously expensive media market, his numbers are almost laughable.
Total Raised: $234,908
Raised from PACs: $172,400*
These contributions made up 73 percent of total receipts.
(*with only $62,508 from individuals.)
Cash on Hand: $378,843
Debt: $254,145
With numbers like that, the climate might be right for a sleeper democrat with some fundraising prowess.
A new survey by Democracy Corps in 50 of the most competitive battleground Congressional districts - nearly all of which gave a majority to Obama in the last presidential election - shows the new Republican majority very much in play in 2012.
The Republican incumbents in these districts, 35 of them freshmen, remain largely unknown and appear very vulnerable in 2012 (depending on redistricting). In fact, these incumbents are in a weaker position than Democratic incumbents were even in late 2009, or Republican incumbents were in 2007 in comparable surveys conducted by Democracy Corps.
The polled districts include the old NJ-3 (Jon Runyan) and NJ-7 (Leonard Lance). Now, we don't know what the new districts will be, and New Jersey is losing a seat, so it's too early to worry about details. What is clear through this and other polls that the Republican extremists in the House (and their counterparts at the state level) are alienating independents, exciting Democrats, and all-in-all building a voting record that will be difficult to defend.
The key though is that Democrats -- and progressives -- must recruit credible challengers while the window of opportunity is still open. LoBiondo's district is very favorable to Democrats, but giving him a pass year after year has left him seemingly invulnerable. Democrats can't afford to make the same mistake with Runyan.
While I'm all the way up in Northern New Jersey, I did take somewhat of an ongoing interest in John Adler's race as I thought he was "different" from other New Jersey Democrats in the way he portrayed himself over the past two years. Sure, there are many reasons that can be thought of as to why John Adler lost to Jon Runyan - whether it was the campaign "missteps" or the issue surrounding the recruitment of a third party candidate or a "wave" that he got caught in, but when you look at the results - a 6,000 vote loss - there is one thing that stands out to me; something that is a narrative in and of itself:
If you betray yourself and your values, you will lose in the end.
Adler could and should have easily held this seat. Runyan was a far inferior candidate and didn't run a great campaign at all. He took very few positions, offered little detail or specifics and fumbled badly (pun intended) in debates and in his comments.
If you're wondering why every newspaper refuses to endorse Jon Runyan, here's a summary of his Tuesday night debate performance:
He says members of Congress should read all the bills they pass; he wants to fully repeal the health care reform bill; and, it turns out, he hasn't read the health care bill.
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.
Josh Marshall points us to Jon Runyan's bizarre response when asked which Supreme Court decisions in "the last 10-15 years" he strongly disagreed with: Runyan picked Dred Scott
Now, Runyan has been arguing that he is pro-choice, yet he is actually giving pro-life signals in this response. Or perhaps he's just ignorant of recent events, but I don't think so
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
Like other voters in the third district I've been inundated with mailers from the Runyan campaign to vote for him because he will "fire" Nancy Pelosi. He says very little about John Adler except he votes with Pelosi 90%. It seems the Runyan strategy is to make this election a referendum on Nancy Pelosi. He never mentions Obama, and hardly refers to Adeler. Instead, it's all about Pelosi.
I'm wondering just how many voters who get this junk even know who Pelosi is. I mean, many voters don't even know who their Congressman is, or even their Senators, except when there is an election. Does anyone have any polling data on Pelosi's name recognition, especially in the third district?
Personally, I don't think Runyan's strategy will work. My guess is relatively few voters, even likely voters, recognize her name, and focusing his attacks on her instead of his opponent will likely backfire at the polls.
Congressional wannabe John Runyan made millions of dollars playing a game (protected by a government-sanctioned monopoly) in hundred million dollar taxpayer-financed stadiums. Upon retirement, he promptly took a government subsidy to turn his luxury McMansion into a hobby farm.
Thankfully, Congressman John Adler is taking him to task for it.
Representative John Adler and his challenger, Republican Jon Runyan, taped a debate today that will air on Larry Kane's Voice of Reason on Comcast Sunday at 9:30pm (if I understand the schedule correctly.)
According to KYR, both candidates claim to support freedom of religion yet are trying to pressure a religious group to move their house of worship. Do you want to vote for Adler, who calls the Muslims in New York indecent, or Runyan, who calls them "tasteless" ?
If one could believe his words, Runyan apparently would oppose the plan to extend the Bush tax cuts:
Runyan said tax cuts must be matched by spending cuts. He criticized the stimulus package, and said the government was "trying to buy their way out of a recession."
although of course we know that's not actually Republican policy. I think it will be interesting to see if Runyan is lying by commission or ignorance, but it's all moot since Democrats are too weak to let the cuts expire anyway.
Adler did defend the stimulus:
Adler agreed with the need to curb spending, and said he consistently voted against wasteful spending in Congress. But he defended President Obama's stimulus package because it sent millions of dollars to New Jersey and included tax cuts for families.
"To suggest somehow that the stimulus failed because it didn't bring us out of the recession, I think it's one of the political tactics people take when they're desperate," Adler said
Runyan also opposes any timetable in Afghanistan.
In other words, Adler is a lousy Congressman but Runyan will be worse. I hope the debate video is posted online after airing.
We're fortunate that Rutgers Professor David Redlawsk has arranged for the first independent poll of poll of the NJ3 Congressional Race, widely believed to be the most (only?) competitive one this year. Incumbent John Adler, who has positioned himself as a conservative Democrat, faces Jon Runyan, who is a famous football player but so far seems to know very little about policy. The full PDF is available here. The headline is that Representative Adler leads in the poll, although with only 421 registered voters the margin of error is an uncomfortably larger 4.8 percent.
There are other permutations of the question, but I think these are two most important. On the one hand, Adler is ahead. On the other, he is way under 50%, a sign of danger for an incumbent. In July, Adler released an internal poll where he lead by 17 (51-34) Statistically, such poll announcements favor the releaser by an extra 6-7% or so. (That is, Adler or Runyan would only release polls that happen to show unusually large/lucky leads, while our faithful Professor releases all results.) 17-7=10, so you might call the polls in good agreement with my proposed correction. Runyan has not released anything, so it now does seem likely Adler is ahead.
Other "generic" polls of New Jersey suggest that other Democratic incuments should be fine:
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com has just introduced his new "Partisan Propensity Index" (PPI). If you've been following elections closely, you're probably already familiar with the Partisan Voting Index (PVI) from Cook, and similar statistics from Swing State Project. Cook's idea is to look at how each Congressional District voted for President compared to the nationwide average. So, for example, the NJ5 district (Garrett's) is rated R+7, meaning it voted 7 points more Republican than nationwide, while NJ13 (Sire's) is rated D+21. You can see why Democrats had such a hard time even with a good candidate against Garrett, and why Republicans didn't seriously contest NJ13 when Menendez left it. Unlike Congressional races, where often one candidate is hardly covered in the news and has hardly any campaign budget, the two party's Presidential candidates are well known. The PVI index is widely used to identify competitive districts.
Here's Silver's idea:
Are there any systematic differences in the ways that votes tend to fall for the Congress, as opposed to the Presidency? Are certain districts better or worse for Democrats, or Republicans, than PVI alone would suggest?
It turns out that there's one other factor which is fairly useful to look at, which is socioeconomic status. Relative to how they do for the Presidency, Democrats are somewhat more likely to win races for Congress in poorer districts, and somewhat more likely to lose them in wealthier ones. Another way to put this is that a split ticket of Republican for President, Democrat for Congress is more likely to occur in a poor district, whereas a split ticket of Democrat for President, Republican for Congress is more likely to occur in a wealthy one.
Click through for the statistical analysis he uses. Silver expresses his PPI index as the chance for Democrats to win an open seat in an average election cycle, based solely on two factors: the recent Presidential Vote and the percentage of the population with incomes under $25,000/yr. Here are the results for New Jersey:
District
Name
PVI
PPI
NJ11
Frelinhguysen
R+7
2.5%
NJ5
Garrett
R+7
3.2%
NJ4
Smith
R+6
10.9%
NJ7
Lance
R+3
13.9%
NJ3
Adler
R+1
27.9%
NJ12
Holt
D+5
62.9%
NJ2
LoBiondo
D+1
66.0%
NJ6
Pallone
D+8
85.2%
NJ9
Rothman
D+9
88.8%
NJ8
Pascrell
D+10
96.6%
NJ1
Andrews
D+12
97.0%
NJ13
Sires
D+21
99.95%
NJ10
Payne
D+33
99.998%
The main lesson, if you take this ratings seriously, is that New Jersey's wealth makes the battleground Congressional districts lean Republican compared to how they vote at the Presidential level. In many states, the R+3 and even the R+7 districts have a great chance of going Democratic at the Congressional level, but here NJ5 and NJ7 are actually quite unfavorable, and should vote for the House like R+14 districts in the rest of the country. When we evaluate how our candidates did, it's worth keeping this effect in mind.
Frank LoBiondo's district is the poorest in New Jersey, and by this measure is slightly better for Democrats than Holt's district, but we are stuck with the echo of 1994. In case it's not obvious, being an incumbent matters, scandals matter, and cycles can be more or less Republican than the average cycle, and you should always remember that the most likely outcome doesn't always happen. All of our 2010 races have incumbents so the percentages definitely do not apply. Also, this is the last election in the current districts.
It's been tough going for Jon Runyan recently and he hasn't gotten the most favorable coverage recently. That's why PolitickerNJ has him listed as a loser in their weekly recap of "Winners and Losers:"
The only good news for the former offensive lineman is that he's still competing in the 3rd Congressional District, which has Republican roots going back to reconstruction. His handlers keep telling him that U.S. Rep. Jon Adler (D-Cherry Hill) can make every master chessman's move in the manual and still fall short of his goal in a district naturally weighted toward the GOP. That may very likely prove true. But that didn't ameliorate what on one level has been a bad news couple of weeks for Runyan, whose ideas on the economy the Asbury Park Press proclaimed "stunningly naive." Examining the results of an Adler campaign poll this week that has the incumbent improbably up by 17 points, Chris Silliza of the Washington Post wrote nonetheless, "Republicans had high hopes for Runyan, a former Pro Bowl offensive lineman. He has struggled with his fundraising, though, and the race hasn't risen to the level of a top GOP priority despite the competitiveness of the district." It's not that we believe the poll is a rock solid reflection of the contest by any means, but the perception right now is that Runyan as a candidate is struggling to find his stride.
When the only good news is that you're still in the race, that's a problem. Perception can easily become reality unless action is taken to correct the problem. Here is the assessment of Brigid Harrison:
"Jon Runyan has not raised the kind of money that would bring about the recognition and support of national party leaders," said Brigid Harrison, a political scientist from Montclair State University.
Analysts had "expected his friends in professional football and his business contacts would step up to the plate and give generously, and we have not seen that happen," Harrison said. "When that occurs, the national party has a tendency to set its sights on more viable candidates."
The trump card still remains Runyan's ability to write a check to his own efforts, to which half of his money raised has already come from. But if things keep going the way they are and don't change, his money will be the only card left in the deck to play.
Republicans had high hopes for Runyan, a former Pro Bowl offensive lineman. He has struggled with his fundraising, though, and the race hasn't risen to the level of a top GOP priority despite the competitiveness of the district.
Runyan's latest fundraising shows him at $650K raised, with $470K Cash on Hand and of that total money, he's given $300K from his own bank account. With those increased numbers from Runyan, Adler still maintains a 4-1 fundraising advantage with over $2 million in the bank. Adler's camp also released a poll yesterday showing Runyan trailing far behind, though its still very early in the game with plenty of time left. This race will remain one to watch.
Despite the worst oil spill in history, Jon Runyan still wants to drill baby drill. You wonder what it would take to change his opinion and I can't imagine beach residents in Ocean County are going to like this position:
Since the disaster, Runyan said he still favors drilling off New Jersey's coast.
"We have to sit down and get our regulations straight and make sure they are applied, and once that's done, I don't have a problem with it," he said.
Adler has already tried to point to the difference in positions:
Minutes after Runyan won the June 8 GOP primary, Adler was on NJN public television from Washington saying he was "very, very surprised" that Runyan supported drilling off the Jersey coast.
Adler's distinction is that he opposes drilling off the Jersey shore and Virginia coast, but if they want it in the Gulf that's their call. As Oil continues to flow into the gulf, you wonder if this position will hurt Runyan with the voters particularly in the shore areas of his district. Here's a live camera shot of the oil flow:
With tar balls now hitting the Texas beaches, the impact of this oil spill has been felt by every state touching the Gulf. The two candidates will have their first debate on the Michael Smerconish show tomorrow morning and I'm sure this issue will come up.
Reading the Asbury Park Press Editorial which took a look at Jon Runyan's 1st press confefence of the general election, I kept thinking it could be something written by us here at Blue Jersey. First they began:
...novice politician Jon Runyan revealed that while he may not have a knack for macroeconomics, he has a great feel for pandering to potential voters.
A great feel for pandering, ok. But they took a look at some of his actual proposals too:
In unveiling the "Runyan 8-point Plan to Lower Taxes, Improve the Economy & Create Jobs," he revealed an appalling lack of understanding about how to do any of those things. His ideas about Social Security, in particular, were stunningly naive.
Stunningly naive and a great feel for pandering. Things are not going well for the S.S. Runyan on its maiden press conference voyage. Here's how the APP summed things up:
He apparently made all these promises with a straight face. And no answer to how the federal government, facing record and growing deficits, would compensate for the untold billions in lost revenue.
There is some truth to the maxim that anything that can be put in a nutshell probably belongs there - bullet-pointed 8-point plans among them.
I couldn't even read the editorial with a straight face, so I have no idea how he was able to get through this nonsense without cracking. In conclusion, the APP believes that Jon Runyan is a novice, pandering and stunningly naive with no answers. If things continue to go like this, the best thing to happen to John Adler could be Jon Runyan running against him on the ballot.
