Dean leading in New Jersey/ pollster: Bush in trouble in NJ

[CMT]

A new Research 2000 poll out of New Jersey. Here are the results:

Pollster Del Ali said this regarding Bush's chances in New Jersey:
"I do not see any scenario of Bush winning New Jersey right now. As much credibility as Bush got in terms of post 9/11, they don't like him. It's anybody but Bush."

Bush: 44%
Lieberman: 48%

Bush: 45%
H. Clinton: 47%

Bush: 44%
Kerry: 46%

Bush: 45%
Dean: 45%

Bush: 42%
Gep: 44%

Bush: 43%
Clark: 44%

Bush: 47%
Edwards: 43%

Bush: 52%
Braun: 23%

Bush: 49%
Kucinich 22%

Bush: 57%
Sharpton: 16%

**Note Bush is not far behind any of the candidates but the article points out: "The poll, conducted last week, also showed growing discontent with Bush. When likely voters were asked to choose in a contest between the major Democratic candidates (Dean, Kerry, Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards)were in a statistical tie with the president. That level of support for the challengers this early in the campaign bodes well..."

Now for the fight for the Democratic nomination here are the numbers:
Dean: 19%
Lieberman: 15%
Kerry 14%
Clark 13%
Gep: 8%
Sharpton 7%
Braun 6%
Edwards 3%
Kucinich 1%
Undecided 14%

link to article is found on Dean site:
http://www.blogforamerica.com/

scroll down page to polls on Massachusetts and New Jersey.

[jenk]

1. for all the hoopla, Dean does poorly vs. Bush in NJ

Gep, Kerry, Lieberman, and Clark all do better.

[w4rma]

2. 1% is well within the margin of error.

Also Dean, IMHO, is raising the percentages of *all* the candidates through his clear and better advertised positions against BushCo.

[CMT]

3. haha

Dean does poorly? he is tied with Bush which is the same as the other candidates. Clark only leads by 1-point. Gep and Kerry lead by only 2-points. Lieberman does best leading by 4-points. Read the article it might prove eduational since it says any of the leading Democrats will probably beat Bush in NJ given how they are doing this early.

[caledesi]

6. Amen. Read the damn article. nt

[jeter]

13. Well within the margin

Jeez, Louise.

Dude, you can make a definitive statement like "my candidate does better" because he polls 1% better?

How silly is that?

[DJcairo]

4. Dean usually does the worst of the big 5 against Bush

You guys can tout famously inaccurate state primary polling, but then you've got to admit when your candidate looks the weakest against Bush. Primary voters are one thing. GE is a whole different ball game.

[tsipple]

7. Ah, No

There are plenty of data that Dean is in the margin of error blob with everyone else. Survey after survey shows the same thing. Just as you'd expect from a random survey, there's no consistency in who's on top and who's not.

Nice try, but there are no data to support your assertion.

[CMT]

9. Well

to you every poll which shows Dean ahead is inaccurate. Most of these polls show each of the candidates running within the moe against Bush. By the way in Massachusetts Dean runs better than Kerry does against Bush according to a poll (both winning overwhelmingly).

[Jerseycoa]

5. North Jersey

Do we consider the poll seems to be weighted to a particular part of New Jersey? The area closest to NYC? Dean is leading in NYC. Bergen and Passaic counties are only a strip of water away.

In the other poll they mention, a statewide poll:

Quinnipiac University Poll

Clark polls 66% to Bush 25% in New Jersey cities and Dean 66-24%. Suburban New Jersey goes Dean 48-45% over Bush; and Clark 50-43% over Bush. In exurban areas, Bush beating Dean 67-27% and Clark 69-27%. At the Shore, Bush polls 54-37% over Dean and 55-33% over Clark. In New Jersey nearest Philadelphia, both Democrats beat Bush; Dean 48-44% and Clark 49-41%.

For what it's worth.

In both polls, though, Dean and Clark are close enough to kiss.

[tsipple]

8. Exactly

One big margin of error blob. Exactly what you'd expect in the ordinary random noise of such surveys. (Statistics 101.)

And, just as statistics predicts, occasionally you have a wild outlier. Like Clark polling worse than any other Democrat nationally (and outside the margin of error) in the last Marist College Poll. These things happen, even among candidates who are tied. (There was a 5% chance of that happening due to simple imprecision in poll measurement.)

And besides, Michael Dukakis was 17 points ahead of the first George Bush 90 days (not 49 weeks) before his election, and I don't remember President Dukakis unfortunately. So not only do we have a bunch of equal polling among the Democratic candidates, we have 49 weeks before the election.

Which is why I really don't care about late primary state polls or national polls. Doesn't give me any useful information, quite honestly.

[CMT]

10. most of this post

is not so much the horse race on the democratic nomination (though of course I will mention the results) but that Bush is in trouble against all the candidates. But people will interpet what they want. Despite all the candidates doing well against Bush--what we hear from some is that Dean is "doing poorly" when in fact he is running neck and neck with Bush which indeed all the leading candidates are according to the moe.

[Jerseycoa]

11. I wouldn't care either

I just live here. But a general caution to anybody (not tsipple) wanting to glimpse the future in New Jersey: It's a chump's game. Voters here turn ornery at the drop of a hat and it's a long, long way to next November.

[jiacinto]

12. NJ is a Democratic State

Bush should be having trouble there.

[displacedvermoter]

19. I do find it interesting that both NY and NJ were being touted as Bush

states not that many months ago. And people were saying that if it was shown that he (Shrub) remained close as '04 got closer, we were in bad trouble. It has changed, for the better, and I'm not hearing Giuliani or Joe Bruno or Christie Whitman saying these states are now winnable. Ditto California, even with Ahnuld on the scene.

[DrFunkenstein]

14. I'm From Jersey, And The Race Will Be Sewn Up Already

If not, the Party is screwed.

[GOPBasher]

15. NJ should be part of our base.

We should be up by 10-15 percentage points in that state. I think this is NOT good news. If NJ is competative, we're losing nationally in a landslide. (I know it was once a swing state, but it isn't anymore.)

[NewJerseyDem]

16. True

However, this is early so Bush should be leading. I expect the Democratic nominee to move ahead once we have one candidate. This state is clearly a solidly Democratic state now and we should win it comfortably.

[GOPBasher]

17. That's true.

That's comforting. Only other issue: Does your state use electronic voting machines?

[Jerseycoa]

18. Not here

Not that I know of. At the Shore, we have the old fashioned levers to flip and positioned next to each name.

[NewJerseyDem]

20. That doesn't matter

The Democratic party has been doing the best in this state, in the past few years, that it has ever done. We just had Democrats do very well in the midterm election even though our Democratic governor is unbelievably unpopular.

To answer you question, yes.

http://www.state.nj.us/lps/elections/hava_mtg_sum_5.27.html

At its May 27, 2003 meeting, the main topic of discussion was voting technology, including voting machines and statewide voter registration. Richard Plantec, Voting Machine Supervisor for the Middlesex County Board of Election demonstrated the Sequoia-Pacific voting machine, which is currently used in ten New Jersey counties. He explained how the machine is programmed, its set-up procedures and its use by the voter. This is an electronic machine which stores all the votes cast on an electronic cartridge. The votes are also stored in memory on the machine, so there is a back-up system. The board workers can print out a tape at the close of the polls which has on it all the vote totals. The machine requires an electric power connection, but there is an 18-hour battery in case of a power failure on an election day. The machine is handicapped accessible and can be adapted for unassisted use by blind voters. Plantec stated that electronic machines are much easier for the board workers to use, as opposed to the older and much heavier mechanical, lever machines.