After the Messaging, it's Time for the Ground Game.

The final Monmouth University Poll in New Hampshire found Donald Trump with a sizable lead over his competition in the Republican race, while Bernie Sanders held a ten point lead over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic contest.

The big question on the GOP side is who will come in second place, with at least four candidates realistically vying for the spot.  On the Democratic side, the question is whether Clinton can reduce her deficit to the single digits.

In the retail-heavy political environment of New Hampshire, it may all come down to the ground game – how many voters can each campaign personally contact.  Monmouth asked its poll respondents whether they had been contacted, and if so, on behalf of whom.

Interestingly, since registered independents can – and do – vote in either party’s primary, a significant number of likely voters in each contest say they were contacted by both Republican and Democratic campaigns.  The numbers below give a relative sense of how intense that outreach has been – and which candidates are excelling in their field operations.

Candidates are listed in rank order of total voter contacts, assuming about the same number of voters will turn out in each party’s primary.  The first number in parenthesis is the percentage of likely Republican voters who report being contacted by someone promoting that candidate.  The second number is the percentage of likely Democratic voters who say the same. 

New Hampshire Voter Contacts

1. Hillary Clinton (13 / 39)
2. Bernie Sanders (13 / 35)
3. Jeb Bush (31 / 8)
4. John Kasich (26 / 8)
5. Ted Cruz (22 / 10)
6. Marco Rubio (22 / 8)
7. Donald Trump (19 / 9)
8. Chris Christie (17 / 7)
9. Carly Fiorina (16 / 4)
10. Ben Carson (11 / 5)
11. Rand Paul (10 / 5)
12. Martin O'Malley (0 / 6)

Testimony on Proposed Changes to New Jersey legislative Reapportionment Process

Testimony of

Patrick Murray

Monmouth University Polling Institute

New Jersey Senate

Committee on State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation

January 7, 2016

Re SCR188 (proposed constitutional changes to legislative apportionment process)

Mr. Chairman, Madame Vice-Chairwoman and members of the committee:

I am Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.  Although I have been known, from time to time, to comment on the efficacy and responsiveness of the internal workings of state government in New Jersey, I rarely take a public position on a piece of legislation.  When I do it is largely because the process by which the legislation was drawn up does not adhere to principles of good government.

It is for this reason that I appear before you today to express my strong opposition to SCR 188.

This proposed Constitutional amendment will not achieve its stated aim of designing a fair legislative map with at least ten competitive districts.

Furthermore, the wording of the ballot question and interpretive statement seems to be deliberately designed to fool New Jersey voters into supporting a Constitutional change against their own interests.

First, let me say that I endorse the provisions that call for the immediate appointment of the public member or the Apportionment Commission and that codify a public access process while still giving the commission the flexibility for negotiating in private.  I also agree with the wisdom of granting legislative leaders the power to appoint commission members in return for barring current legislators from serving on the commission. 

However, I must object to the entire amendment because of the language in paragraphs 2.c. and especially 2.d.

Let me start with the “fair representation” provision in paragraph 2.c.  According to the Judiciary Committee statement, this provision utilizes the standards established by Dr. Donald Stokes, who served as the commission’s public member in both 1981 and 1991. 

On close examination, it does not.

Stokes’s fairness doctrine states that the number of seats a party holds in the legislature after each election should correlate to its share of the vote in that election.  For example, if the statewide vote splits 50-50 split between the Democratic and Republican candidates for office, then the share of legislative seats should be evenly divided.  However, according to projections Stokes included in his 1993 monograph, if a party wins 60 percent of the vote, it would be reasonable to see that party take as many as 75 percent of the seats. 

Fair enough, but Stokes’s fairness test must to be applied to the map as a whole after the fact.  You cannot a priori set aside 30 evenly-divided safe districts and then work on 10 so-called competitive districts and guarantee that you will come up with a fair correlation of seats to the statewide vote share.

More importantly, though, the crucial metric used by Stokes is whether seats in the legislature correlate to the total vote for the legislature.  Not how those seats correlate to the vote for a variety of unrelated offices such as President, Governor, or U.S. Senate as set forth in that paragraph.

This linkage is truly bizarre.  As we know, voters use a different set of criteria when evaluating who to support in elections for federal offices versus state offices as well as for executive positions versus legislative ones.

If gubernatorial elections told us what type of representation New Jersey voters want in their legislature, I would be directing my remarks today to the Republican Chairman of this committee.  By the same token, if presidential elections told us what New Jersey voters want in a legislature, there would be only one Republican sitting on this committee today.

However, even if Stokes’s fairness doctrine was applied correctly, it would still be unfair in practice.  In determining the legislative vote share of the two parties, Stokes did not employ a straight tally of the statewide vote, but used a district-based vote share average.  In other words, instead of using millions of data points – i.e. individual votes – to determine the New Jersey electorate’s intent, Stokes used only 40 data points – the two-party percentage margin in each district.

Stokes claimed that, due to widely varying voter registration and turnout rates in each district, this formula would be more representative of the will of all constituents – assuming that non-voters have the same preferences as those who actually showed up to vote.

This may be true in theory, but it is not supported by the data.  I examined election results from the past five legislative cycles – which is exactly what Stokes would do.  I found 19 instances where one party or the other did not field a full slate of candidates for either the Senate or the Assembly, which represents a not insignificant 6 percent of all races during that period.  Moreover, 14 of those 19 cases – or nearly three-quarters of these uncontested races – were instances where the Republican Party did not field a full slate.  That means that 14 of the data points used in the Stokes fairness test would produce a result at or near a 100 percent vote share for the Democrats compared to only 5 data points that would produce the same result for Republicans.

This would falsely skew the overall vote share result toward the Democrats, unless you actually believe that there were no minority party voters living in any of those 19 uncontested districts.

On the one hand, using non-legislative elections to determine the legislative maps fairness relies on a false metric.  But using the legislative election results as Stokes would have done would produce a skewed metric.

Even if the proposed formula did not face these problems, trying to codify this fairness doctrine in Constitutional language is akin to making the ghost of Donald Stokes the commission’s public member in perpetuity.  This is simply not something that should be written into the Constitution.

In fact, recent changes to Ohio’s legislative redistricting process which were approved by voters there last year, includes a fairness provision that provides sufficient leeway for the members of their commission.  It says simply that: “the statewide proportion of districts whose voters, based on […] election results during the last ten years, favor each political party shall correspond closely to the statewide preferences of the voters.”

While, the full provision does use what I believe to be a false metric by including non-legislative elections, the language is broad enough that it allows for each decennial commission to negotiate its meaning while incorporating emerging standards, such as the principle of “communities of interest” which has been largely ignored in New Jersey’s process.

More importantly, the Ohio standard also states quite clearly, and I quote, “[n]o general assembly district plan shall be drawn primarily to favor or disfavor a political party.”

And it is on this standard that SCR 188 fails miserably.

Because this resolution was introduced less than four weeks ago, I have not had the same opportunity to run vote simulations on potential outcomes, as I am sure its supporters have been doing for the past few years.  However, I have been crunching numbers in New Jersey for long enough to know when something smells fishy.

The process in paragraph 2.d. claims to create competitive districts, but actually entrenches a permanent Democratic majority by using a tortured definition of the word “competitive.”

In reality, competitive districts drawn using this provision in the 2021 process would almost certainly range from a smaller but definite Democratic advantage to an absolutely solid Democratic advantage.

While this outcome might be in line with the fairness doctrine, it defies any common sense meaning of the word “competitive.”

For most voters, the word “competitive” means that either party has a decent shot of winning the seat.  It does not mean that one party simply won’t lose as badly in a certain district as it will elsewhere in the state.

Over the past two decades, I have had the privilege of hearing the opinions of hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans.  And I can say with certainty that our state’s residents want a truly competitive legislative map.  Indeed, you need to look no further than election returns which consistently show that competitive elections produce higher turnout.

So I am left to wonder why the drafters of this resolution would use the word “competitive” to describe an outcome that is not competitive according to voters’ vernacular?

I am left with only one conclusion.  This is a bald-faced attempt to pull the wool over voters’ eyes; making them complicit in a process that will only serve to increase their cynicism about politics.

Anyone reading the ballot question and interpretive statement about creating competitive districts would come away with a far different interpretation of what that means than what the proposed Constitutional language will actually produce.

I fully endorse revisiting how our Legislative Redistricting Commission operates.  But if a fuller process for public input is a good idea for the commission, then it should also be a good idea for the legislative process by which these constitutional changes are proposed.

Therefore, I urge you to table this resolution. 

Thank you.

Carson Up, Trump Down

by Anthony Alaimo

Monmouth University Poll Institute graduate assistant

Despite many pundits painting his campaign as a sideshow earlier this summer, Donald Trump has managed to stay atop the pack of Republican hopefuls in the race for the 2016 Republican nomination. However, ahead of Wednesday night’s third Republican debate, recently released polls, both nationally and in some important primary races, seem to indicate a Donald Trump slide. Dr. Ben Carson, who has had consistently high favorability ratings among Republican voters since he announced his candidacy in May, looks to be the prime beneficiary of Trump’s decline. Has Carson overtaken Trump as the favorite? If so, why has he been able to despite a lack of any recent major stumbles for Trump? As always, we need only to look at the numbers to find out.

In Monmouth University’s August Poll of Republicans in the crucial first caucus state of Iowa, the two political outsiders were locked in a dead heat at 23%. In Monmouth’s poll taken this past week, Carson (32%) has begun to pull away from Trump (18%). Similar polling in the month of October in Iowa can be seen from Quinnipiac (Carson 28% to Trump 20%) and Bloomberg/Des Moines Register (Carson 28% to Trump 19%). Trump led Carson by 6 points and 5 points respectively, in each outlet’s late August/early September Iowa polling of Republican voters.

Unfortunately for Trump, the downward trend continues when we look at recent national polling. A CBS/New York Times Poll, taken October 21-25, shows Carson (26%) now leading Trump (22%) nationally for the first time since Trump entered the fray in June. In a previous CBS News/New York Times national poll, taken September 9-13, Trump led Carson 27% to 23%. While Carson has not pulled ahead in any other major national poll, he continues to close the gap with Trump. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken October 15-18 had Trump (25%) holding on to a small lead over Carson (22%). CNN/ORC polling done October 14-17 show Trump clinging to a 5 point lead over Carson after leading him by 10 points in their September poll. Additionally, polls released this week in both Texas and North Carolina tell a similar story. A KTVT-CBS 11/Dixie Strategies Poll in Texas, taken October 23-24, shows Carson with a slim 1 point lead over Trump, while a Public Policy Polling survey taken October 23-25 in North Carolina has Carson leading Trump 23% to 11%.

So, why the sudden shuffle at the top of the GOP totem pole? Simply put, voters may simply be tiring of The Donald Show. After his announcement in June, to the surprise of many pollsters and pundits alike, Trump’s low favorability rocketed up as he took on the role of frontrunner while drawing huge crowds everywhere he went. However, after his performance in the second GOP debate in September, those ratings flattened and began to trend downward. Conversely, Dr. Ben Carson’s favorability ratings among Republican voters have consistently been at or near the top when compared to his fellow candidates, both nationally and in the early voting states. In fact, in a Loras College Iowa poll taken just this past week, when asked if they would absolutely not vote for Dr. Ben Carson, only 3% of Iowa Republicans would refuse to vote for the famed neurosurgeon, while 28% said they would absolutely not vote for Trump.

Trump is clearly no longer running away with the 2016 Republican nomination. However, besides his consistently high marks with Republican voters, why has Carson been the one to pose a significant challenge to the frontrunner? Essentially, Republican voters are still clamoring for an outsider candidate who has not been sullied by the partisan stalemate in Washington. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll, taken October 15-19, made this preference very clear. An overwhelming number of Republican voters (77%) prefer an outsider candidate who will change how things are done, instead of a candidate with Washington experience (22%). Similarly, they prefer a candidate with private-sector leadership (76%) over someone with experience holding political office (22%). With Carly Fiorina failing to gain any real momentum after her impressive debate performances, that leaves Trump, who Republican voters are clearly tiring of, and Dr. Ben Carson, who in the same AP-GfK poll pulled the highest favorability rating of any GOP candidate (65% favorable to just 13% unfavorable).

Trump recently said, “I don’t quite get it,” when he was asked about these troubling polls. Unfortunately for The Donald, unless he delivers a quality performance at Wednesday’s third GOP debate, he really might not get it.

Sanders's Defense of Clinton Politically Savvy

by Anthony Alaimo
Monmouth University Poll Institute graduate assistant

The loudest applause during last week’s Democratic debate occurred when Senator Bernie Sanders actually came to Hillary Clinton’s defense when she was asked about her handling of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State. Sanders, instead of attacking Clinton on an issue that Republicans and the media have turned into a point of contention in her campaign, warned the Las Vegas audience that he was about to say something that may not be great politics.

Shockingly, at least at first glance, Sanders said he agreed with Secretary Clinton and complained that the American people were sick and tired of hearing about her damn emails. What could Sanders have been thinking? Why wouldn’t he attack his main rival on an issue that has been covered so intensely by the media? Was this a lapse in judgement or was it premeditated?

Millions of viewers, many of whom have only been casual followers of this prolonged 2016 race, as well as some die-hard political junkies, probably had similar questions after Sanders seemingly missed an opportunity to distinguish himself from his rival.

The obvious explanation is Sanders was trying to make himself look above the fray as a candidate that cares more about the issues than about piling on. But we can find a political answer in the polls.

While the Republican Congress and numerous 2016 presidential candidates continue to attack Clinton about her alleged improper use of a private email server, Democratic voters have been largely consistent when pollsters have asked them about her emails. They are just not all that concerned about it.

A recent CBS News poll, taken October 4-8, examined Democratic voter opinion regarding Clinton’s email server and reflected similar polling trends over the past few months. When asked if it was appropriate for Secretary Clinton to exclusively use a personal email address and server for work, 48% of Democrats viewed her actions as inappropriate, while 41% viewed them as appropriate. But this is nowhere near as negative as when the same question was asked of Republican voters – 93% said her actions were not appropriate, while only 7% said they were appropriate.

When delving deeper into the issue, though, 62% of Democratic voters said they are satisfied with Clinton’s explanation of why she used a private email server, while only 28% were dissatisfied. On the question of whether the email controversy would be important to their 2016 vote, only 14% of Democratic voters said the email server issue would be very important and just another 15% said it is somewhat important. A combined 70% said the email issue would not be important when they cast their votes.

Finally, a post-debate poll from Monmouth University found that 69% of Americans – including 79% of Democrats – agree with Sanders.  They are tired of hearing about the emails.  Only 14% of Democrats would like the media to continue to cover this issue.

Looking into the poll numbers, it seems clear that Sanders’ phone-a-friend moment wasn’t so much a gaffe as it was a calculated, pre-planned line that he was probably eagerly waiting to deliver. And, it worked. Sanders looked chivalrous, while knowing it would not be politically smart to launch a useless attack on an issue that has failed to gain traction among the Democratic base.  In fact, the Sanders campaign sent out a fundraising email based on his “damn emails” statement as they immediately looked to capitalize on the publicity from the best line of the night.

However, looking even deeper into the numbers and ahead to November 2016, the Clinton campaign cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that independents do not share Democrats’ view. In that same CBS News poll, 72% of independent voters said Clinton’s use of a private email server was not appropriate and 62% said they were mostly dissatisfied with Clinton’s explanation. Unfortunately for Secretary Clinton, there will be no Sanders lifeline next year.

New Jersey 2014 Primary Day Recap

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ 

Here’s a look at yesterday’s vote by the numbers.  It’s long, but worth the read for those interested in GOTV targeting and ballot position logistics.

House District 3 – Republicans

Let’s start with the least surprising outcome.  Tom MacArthur won by a lot, as expected, because the county chairs – George Gilmore in Ocean and Bill Layton in Burlington – didn’t want their local candidates hobbled in November by sharing a ticket with Steve Lonegan. 

MacArthur’s 20 point margin was also fed by the low turnout.  The normal base electorate in CD03 is moderate senior citizens.  Lonegan needed to expand the base by turning out younger libertarian types who do not normally vote in primaries.  His vitriolic personal attacks on MacArthur did the opposite and only 25,000 Republicans showed up to vote – a normal turnout in a less competitive race.

House District 12 – Democrats

I was fairly certain all along that the underlying fundamentals of this district would result in a Bonnie Watson Coleman victory.  But I never foresaw by how much.  This “neck-and-neck” race turned into a 15 point rout! And on very high turnout – over 35,000 voters – to boot.

Here’s how it happened by the numbers.  Each candidate had a certain threshold they needed to achieve.  In order to squeak out a win, Linda Greenstein needed a minimum of 6,000 to 7,000 votes out of her home county of Middlesex, about 2,700 out of Mercer, 700 out of Union, and 400 out of Somerset.  She just reached those minimum levels.

The problem was that Watson Coleman exceeded her needed vote counts – by a mile! Her minimum target in Mercer was 7,000 votes based on expected turnout.  She got nearly 11,000! She was pegged to get 2,000 votes out of Union.  She took away 3,000.  And she met her needs in Middlesex (800) and Somerset (500).

The urban vote from Trenton and Plainfield were her anchors.  Despite Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp’s professed concern that the local contest there would hurt Watson Coleman, she came away more than 8-in-10 votes there.  The ballot set-up made it easy for voters to find their way to her despite who they chose in the local council race.

In Trenton, the concern was turnout.  Yesterday’s primary was sandwiched between the Trenton mayor’s race and its subsequent run-off.  Certainly turnout was slightly lower than the Watson Coleman camp would have liked, but still respectable.  And she won nearly 9-in-10 of the 5,000 Trenton voters who showed up.

The real story here wasn’t in the cities, though, but in the suburbs.  The suburban Mercer portion of this district turned out an astounding 12,000 voters yesterday.  Watson Coleman won a solid majority of these suburban voters despite the fact that Greenstein also represents some of those towns in the legislature.

To put it another way, my voter model assumed that about 11,000 voters would show up in Mercer and 8,000 in Middlesex.   It was actually 17,000 in Mercer - 55% over expectations – and 10,700 in Middlesex – 33% over expectations.

The over performance in Middlesex was not too surprising.  Many figured that a solid effort by Grenstein and county chair Kevin McCabe could get out a certain number of atypical primary voters.  However, very few observers believed that the Watson Coleman team could match, let alone exceed, any elevated GOTV numbers Greenstein might produce.

In the other parts of the district, Union’s turnout of 4,000 votes was within expectations, but Somerset’s 4,300 vote turnout exceeded expectations there.  That’s another part of the story that bears mentioning.

Upendra Chivukula ran a solid campaign for someone who had the deck stacked against him.  He took nearly 3,000 votes out of his home county of Somerset.  His 68% majority there was actually better than Watson Coleman in Mercer (64%) and Greenstein in Middlesex (60%).  He also garnered nearly 2,800 votes in Middlesex and 1,700 in Mercer. 

In fact, he won South Brunswick 43% to 38% – a town that was part of Greenstein’s core base before redistricting in 2011.  He also won quite a few precincts throughout Middlesex and in the Windsors that have sizable Asian populations.

These numbers should give pause to anyone in Middlesex looking to throw Chivukula off the line in next year’s legislative elections.  [Chivukula’s hometown of Franklin Twp is the only Somerset municipality in the 17^th district.]

Chivukula was not the spoiler.  Throwing his vote total in Middlesex County to Greenstein still would not have changed the outcome.  One wildcard is whether Greenstein would have been able to nab the Somerset line if Chivukula had not run.  But even then, she would have gotten only maybe another 1,000 to 1,500 votes because turnout there would have been lower. 

Chivukula performed as well as he did not just by taking votes away from Greenstein.  He certainly did that to some degree, but he also expanded his own base by getting out the vote in the Asian community.  That’s the kind of candidate you want on your ticket in a place like Middlesex County.

In the end, Bonnie Watson Coleman won this race in suburban Mercer.  I don’t think the video of Greenstein calling Mercer Dems her enemies had much impact on voters.  But I bet it put a spur in the saddle of local party leaders, giving them even more impetus to put their GOTV efforts into hyperdrive.

House District 7 – Republicans

I really didn’t expect this race to be on my recap list.  Movement conservative David Larsen has run against Leonard Lance twice before.  The first time was for an open seat in 2010.  Lance beat Larsen by 24 points in a field of four candidates.  Two years ago, incumbent Lance fended off Larsen by a healthy 61% to 39% margin.

This year, Lance’s victory was a much slimmer 54% to 46%.  Turnout played a major role.  In 2012, Lance got 23,400 votes in the primary.  This year, he took only 15,700.  Larsen, on the other, hand nearly matched his vote total from two years ago.  He had 15,200 votes in 2012 and 13,100 votes in 2014.  Larsen supporters are stalwarts.  Unlike in CD03, these core primary voters veer to the right ideologically.

While Lance is safe for another two years, this primary actually had up-ballot implications and may have helped determine the winner of the GOP’s US Senate nomination.

U.S. Senate – Republicans

Anybody, including me, who tried to predict this outcome ended up getting burned.  I also lost my bet to Paul Mulshine.  No candidate reached 30% of the vote.  The prior record for a low primary victory plurality was Brendan Byrne’s 30.3% in 1977, in a much more crowded field.

How did we get to this result since none of the candidates spent much, if any, money on their campaigns?  For one, fewer than 143,000 New Jersey Republicans showed up.  I’m not even going to bother to look this one up.  It has to be a modern day low for a contested statewide primary!

This low turnout race came down to county lines and ballot positions.  If you never believed either factor matters much, read on and be amazed!

Fourteen of New Jersey’s 21 county GOP organizations endorsed a candidate in the US Senate race.  That chosen candidate won 11 of those 14 counties.  But that is not the whole story.

There is a good deal of research on the value of nabbing the first ballot position in low-information races.  Yesterday’s primary proved that.  Among counties with no organizational endorsement, the candidate who landed in the first ballot position won 5 of those 7 counties!  In fact, the person who lucked out with the first ballot position came in either first or second place in 18 of New Jersey’s 21 counties.

I anticipated this pattern, which is why I thought Goldberg had the best shot of securing the nomination.  He had the party line and the first position in 4 counties, the party line but not first position in 6 counties, and first position without the line in 2 counties.  By contrast, Murray Sabrin had one line and 7 first positions.  Rich Pezzullo had only three county lines and two first positions.  Jeff Bell had no lines and 5 first positions.

Given this distribution of lines and prime ballot position how did Jeff Bell win? 

Bell won 4 of the 5 counties where he had the first ballot position.  He won Burlington, where Goldberg had the “line” (more on that below), and Morris County where he had the last ballot spot in a county with no endorsed candidate.  He also took second place in 8 other counties.  That translates to 14 “top two” showings. 

Goldberg, on the other hand, won 7 of the 10 counties where held the line.  Unfortunately for him, he tanked in those counties where he didn’t have organizational support.  It is an amazing juxtaposition.  He came in dead last in 10 of the 11 counties where he did not have party support, usually failing to get out of the single digits in those counties! 

Goldberg also came in last in Burlington County, where he had the county endorsement.  However, the ballot wasn’t structured in lines – Goldberg was not visually linked with MacArthur running in CD03 and the local favorites.  The names were actually stacked, with Sabrin atop Goldberg and Pezzullo in the first column and Bell all by himself in the second column.  In practical terms, Sabrin and Bell both had “first position” on the ballot and consequently ended up tying for first in Burlington with 32% of the vote each.

The lack of a visible “line” rendered the party endorsement meaningless for Goldberg.  If nothing proves the importance of “lines” and ballot positions, this one result should.

The places where Goldberg had an actual line but lost were Hunterdon and Somerset.  This is where the Lance-Larsen CD07 race comes into play.  Conservative Rich Pezzullo won Hunterdon.  While he wasn’t bracketed with Larsen, he likely won the support of Larsen voters – who would not support any part of the organizational ticket – by virtue of being listed first on the ballot.  A similar phenomenon occurred in Somerset, although in this case Bell was the beneficiary of drawing the first position and sopping up support from the anti-organization Larsen contingent.

It’s entirely possible that Pezzullo would have won the nomination if he was lucky enough to draw first ballot position in more than just two counties.  That’s how important this factor was in New Jersey’s Senate primary.  However, there may have been another issue at play here.

Bell, the eventual winner, never bothered to go to any of the state’s county parties to ask for their support.  He won on the basis of being lucky enough to draw the first position in counties where no party line was awarded and by being the top choice of GOP voters who rejected their county organizations’ favored candidate.  Why him over the others? 

Barring ideology or other issue positions, people tend to vote for candidates who they feel are like them.  Yesterday’s election featured a low turnout base of core GOP primary stalwarts.  Let’s see, you got MURRAY Sabrin, Rich PEZZULLO, and Brian GOLDBERG on one hand.  And then there is “Jeff Bell.”

You get just 4,000 or so GOP primary voters who make their pick based on a name they feel comfortable with, and voila - there’s your nominee.

New Jersey 2014 Primary Day Outlook

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ 

New Jersey has a few interesting primary contests in federal races tomorrow, some with greater consequences than others.  Here’s my take on the few competitive ones.

House District 12 – Democrats

Monmouth University’s poll two weeks ago showed a very tight race between State Senator Linda Greenstein and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman.  This race will come down to geography.  Each leading candidate has the full-throated support of the party organization in her home county – Greenstein in Middlesex and Watson Coleman in Mercer. The presence of Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula effectively took Somerset County off the table for either, although Watson Coleman was able to nab the Union County line amidst a very convoluted local election in Plainfield.

This race really boils down to voter turnout, particular county-by-county.  Keep in mind that turnout for this primary is likely to be in the 20,000 to 25,000 range. 

Greenstein should win the Middlesex portion with about 70% of the vote, with Chivukula, who represents two towns there, coming in second with about 15%.  Watson Coleman will split the remainder of the vote with a fourth candidate, South Brunswick resident Andrew Zwicker. 

Watson Coleman will win the Mercer vote, but the question is whether her majority will be closer to 55% or closer to 65%.  Greenstein, who represents a number of towns in the county, will come in second with at least 20% of the vote.

Somerset will go handily to Chivukula – he’ll take at least two-thirds of the vote – with Watson Coleman and Greenstein vying for second.  Thus, this county should have limited impact on determining the victor unless the overall margin is less than 100 votes.

Union County is the wildcard in this race.  Watson Coleman has the line and her name will appear on the ballot just below Cory Booker and above county chair Jerry Green’s endorsed slate.  Most of this is in Plainfield which is facing a pitched battle for city council, with Green’s slate under Watson Coleman in column A and Mayor Adrian Mapp’s slate all by itself in column E.  Although Watson Coleman is supported by both sides in Plainfield, the local battle has cost her resources in the form of shared literature drops and get out the vote efforts.  In addition, Chivukula appears at the top of an off-the-line county freeholder slate.  Although those candidates are not campaigning – the slate is a byproduct of the local race in Elizabeth – the presence of an alternative ticket may attract some hardcore supporters of the Mapp team in a town where none of the Congressional candidates have any real name recognition.

Despite the potential confusion, Watson Coleman will win the Union County vote.  The question is by how much.  This is just one of the multiple moving parts in this race which, if adjusted ever so slightly in certain combinations, will determine the eventual outcome.

Looking at Democratic primary voting trends over the past couple of election cycles, Mercer has a history of contributing the largest share of the vote in the towns that currently constitute the 12^th Congressional District – specifically, more than 4-in-10 of the total votes.  Middlesex usually contributes less than one-third, Union about 15% and Somerset just over 10%.  The local race in Plainfield may spur turnout in that city while the fact that tomorrow’s primary is sandwiched between a Trenton mayoral election and its subsequent runoff may reduce turnout there.

What Greenstein needs to do to win: turn out enough voters in her base so that Middlesex voters comprise more than one-third of the total district vote and take at least 25% of the vote in both Mercer and Union.

What Watson Coleman needs to do to win: turn out at least 6,000 voters in Trenton and earn 60% majorities in both Mercer and Union.

The difference between Middlesex making up 32% versus 33% of the total turnout and Greenstein winning 24% versus 25% in Mercer County – or some similar combination of moving parts – could be the deciding factor in this race.

Having said that, I’m going out on a limb and predicting that Watson Coleman will win by 2 points.  But I won’t be the least bit surprised if this forecast turns out to be wrong.

House District 3 – Republicans

This race has gone from nasty to unseemly.  Steve Lonegan violated a cardinal rule – it is one thing to say that your opponent ran a horrible company that hurt people.  That can be used to show a lack of judgment, competence, etc.  It is quite another, though, to accuse your opponent of being a horrible person – unless you have a secretly recorded video to back you up.  Voters don’t react kindly to unsupported assaults on a person’s character.  They view this strategy as a sign of desperation.

Moreover, these type of ad hominem attacks only serve to depress turnout.  That’s good for Steve Lonegan, you say?  The conventional wisdom is that the most conservative candidate will win a low turnout primary, you say?

That may be true in Mississippi, but not in the middle of New Jersey.  Monmouth University’s poll from last month showed that while Lonegan was winning the strongest conservatives among likely voters in CD03, Tom MacArthur was winning most other conservatives as well as moderates – who make up a larger share of the electorate. 

Lonegan’s support actually relies on younger libertarian-oriented voters who are generally turned off by politics and infrequently vote in primaries.  The typical CD03 GOP primary voter is a middle-of-the-road senior citizen.  Lonegan would have done even worse in our poll if we had tightened the likely voter model.  And low turnout is the direction this race is likely to go.

Prediction: MacArthur by 16 points.

U.S. Senate – Republicans

In case you were wondering, four candidates are vying for the GOP nomination to face incumbent Cory Booker in November.  Three of them have run statewide races before.  One has never run for elected office.  Can you guess which one has, at least nominally, the most support from the Republican establishment?

Even though three of the candidates have faced the voters before, New Jerseyans have short memories and none have any name recognition to speak of, as we found out in a February Monmouth/Asbury Park Press Poll.

We have little hard evidence on how this race is shaping up.  There has been almost no campaign activity and there has been no polling – either internally or independently.  For my own part, I can’t justify spending more money to field a poll than most of the candidates have raised for their own campaigns.

We will know soon enough who gets the honor of losing to Booker in November. But that shouldn’t stop us from making predictions, right?  In lieu of actual polling I arbitrarily assigned weights to party endorsements and ballot positions to forecast potential vote share in each of New Jersey’s 21 counties.  Putting all that data through the Vote-O-Matic processor turned up this entirely feasible – or totally bogus – outcome: 

Brian Goldberg 35%, Jeff Bell 23%, Rich Pezzullo 22%, and Murray Sabrin 20%.

As a side note, I have a bet with Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine on the outcome of this race.  Not on who will win, but on whether the winning candidate will be able to break 30%.  Historical context: Gov. Brendan Byrne barely broke 30% in a crowded primary when he ran for a second term in 1977.  Who knows how this will turn out – but with a six-pack of Flying Fish riding on the outcome, I certainly hope I’m right.

When it comes to profiling Christie, facts are for wussies

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ 

In the movie Love & Death, the main character impersonates a Spanish ambassador and is asked how much progress he’s made on a pending treaty.  The ersatz diplomat replies, “I've come up with all the little details.  If I can just think of the main points, we got something.”

A recent New Yorker profile of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie turned this quote on its head.  It got all the main points right, but it misfired on the details. 

Ryan Lizza’s article was geared toward a national audience that has recently turned its attention to the Garden State’s chief executive.  It was not aimed at me, but the number of errors in material fact and other arguable characterizations of history were off-putting to anyone with a modicum of knowledge of recent history.

Let’s take a look at a few blunders that jumped off the page.

The 2006 U.S. Senate race was not contested by Congressman Robert Menendez as the article claims.  Menendez was actually a U.S. Senator during the time period discussed.  He was appointed by Jon Corzine to fill the newly elected governor’s vacant seat in January of that year.  That means Menendez was already in the Senate before Solomon Dwek was arrested and turned government informant.  It would be pretty difficult for Christie to turn his attention on “Menendez, then a Jersey City congressman” unless he had a WABAC machine.  And for the record, Menendez is known as either a “Union City” or “Hudson County” politician.

The article also asserts that top Democrats were considering a run for governor later in Christie’s first term because “Christie’s popularity began to dip in 2012.”  While some politicos may have thought Christie was beatable, his poll numbers were fairly stable in 2012 until Superstorm Sandy hit, at which point they skyrocketed.  According to three independent polls that regularly track the governor – Monmouth University, Quinnipiac University, and FDU-Public Mind – Christie’s voter approval rating never went lower than 50% or higher than 59% from January to October that year.

While there were some minor fluctuations in the 16 poll readings taken during that ten month period, there is no point where a “dip” is evident.  In fact, Christie’s job approval ratings in 2012 were consistently higher than they had been during his first two years in office.  His average job approval rating for 2010 was 46%, in 2011 it was 50%, and for the first ten months of 2012 it was 54%.  I’m pretty sure if I plot that on a graph, we won’t find any dip.

Another material error in the article is that the KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy is not, in fact, a charter school under New Jersey law, but a specially legislated “Renaissance School.”  This distinction is noteworthy because the special designation was created in part to help George Norcross’s foundation avoid the onerous charter school application process.  The irony here is that reporting the more accurate designation would have strengthened the author’s argument about Christie’s style.

Other statements stand out not because they are technically incorrect but because they are somewhat misleading.  For example, saying “Christie and his prosecutors gave Dwek a second assignment” to ensnare politicians makes it sound like it was thrust upon the Dwek rather than coming at Dwek’s prompting, as has been reported elsewhere.

The article also contends that George Norcross and former Gov. Jim Florio are both “from Camden” with the context suggesting that they grew up in the city.  While both were Camden County politicians, neither hails from Camden City.  Norcross grew up in neighboring Pennsauken and Florio was raised in not-so-neighboring Brooklyn.  Florio did move to Camden as an adult to attend law school before settling in a suburban community.

Oh.  And one more. New Jersey has 565 municipalities, not 566 as the article claims.  Although perhaps the New Yorker would have us believe that Staten Island is part of the Garden State rather than the Empire State.  I hear that’s a pretty popular idea among its readership.

These errors and mischaracterizations are minor you might say.  True.  It doesn’t necessarily undermine the overall theme of Christie’s personality and governing approach the article attempts to portray.  But in a time when mainstream journalism is under attack for both lack of relevancy and declining standards, you’ve got to wonder…

It is only fitting then to end by misappropriating another movie line that is itself an erroneous quote.  To wit: “Facts? We don’t need no stinkin’ facts!”

The Race is On!

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ 

It appears that I have unilaterally announced the gubernatorial candidacies of both Senate President Steve Sweeney and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop.  Well, somebody had to do it...

But seriously, an explanation may be in order.

This “revelation” stemmed from an interview with the Star-Ledger’s Matt Friedman on Sweeney’s elevated profile in recent months.  As I said to Matt, you can’t talk about whether Sweeney is “in campaign mode” without considering Fulop’s recent activities as well.  Both Democrats are positioning themselves for a run at Drumthwacket.

In fact, the next gubernatorial campaign kicked off almost immediately after Chris Christie’s re-election in November.  Two weeks later to be precise.

At the annual League of Municipalities Convention in Atlantic City, Sweeney hosted a well-attended reception.  That’s not unusual for a legislative leader.  The incoming Assembly Speaker, Vincent Prieto, held another well-attended event that week.

What was unusual was the high profile reception hosted by the brand new mayor of Jersey City the next evening.  The 5^th floor of the Chelsea Hotel was jam-packed with Democratic movers and shakers jockeying to rub shoulders with a rising star.  Fulop made an unmistakable statement that night – he fully intends to be a major player in state politics.

I do not doubt that Sweeney’s interest in statewide issues, such as the Sandy Victim’s Bill of Rights, is genuinely part of his role as New Jersey’s legislative leader.  I also believe that Fulop’s active participation in the Newark mayor’s race is to help foster a united front on urban issues.

You cannot ignore, though, that these moves are equally about shoring up support, and supporters, in counties that will be crucial in a contested Democratic priority.  While neither has actually declared his candidacy, both are engaging in behavior that can only be read as the intent to run if the opportunity presents itself.

I have never seen this level of activity four years ahead of a scheduled election.  The key word there being “scheduled.”  There’s a decent possibility that the next gubernatorial election will occur earlier than scheduled.

Back in November, some observers believed that Gov. Christie may end up resigning early in order to run for president; a resignation necessitated by federal campaign funding rules.  This would result in a special election one or even two years early.  While Christie’s presidential prospects may have dimmed, there are still some who believe the state may be facing an early election, albeit for distinctly different reasons.

The bottom line is that potential candidates for New Jersey’s next governor have to be prepared to run at any time.  They cannot count on a four year timeline to undertake the groundwork for launching a campaign.

Under normal circumstances, a mayor would not want to be seen as actively looking to move up the ladder after just a few months on the job.  If Fulop followed the normal course of a rising prospect by quietly building support, though, he could be on left out in the cold when it comes time to claim county lines in an early primary.

Thus, the mayor of Jersey City has decided to up the ante.  The Newark mayor’s race is as much about who will control the Essex County party during the next gubernatorial primary as it is about who will run Newark.  It also doesn’t escape notice that the candidate Fulop is hoping to defeat could be another gubernatorial contender with urban credentials to rival Fulop’s if he won.

If he wants to position himself for the governorship, Steve Fulop cannot afford to cede the field to Steve Sweeney.  But this also means that the Senate President has been forced to up his game as well.

One danger in an overly protracted campaign is that either or both candidates could flame out.  It’s also possible that either or both candidates may choose not to run when the time comes.  But with an uncertain horizon for the next election, both need to be ready.

Some may see Steve Sweeney’s current statewide tour as a gubernatorial gavotte, but in this case it takes two to tango.

Sandy aid requires serious oversight

This column originally appeared as an Op-Ed in the Star-Ledger on February 7, 2014.

A legislative investigation into George Washington Bridge lane closures has become inextricably linked to the distribution of Hurricane Sandy recovery aid. No one has tied the Fort Lee incident to Sandy funds. However, the roles of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and individuals inside the agency, in development projects both in Fort Lee and the storm-hit community of Hoboken, have raised questions about whether Sandy aid has been properly distributed.

The media have uncovered a few instances where federal recovery dollars were used to support development outside Sandy’s hardest-hit communities. This is the first time the public is learning about how these funds have been used.

To date, most New Jerseyans approve of how Gov. Chris Christie’s administration has handled Sandy recovery. In December, a Monmouth University poll found 66 percent of residents statewide were satisfied with the pace of recovery, although that number was down from 76 percent in September.

It’s a different story among residents who suffered the most from the storm. On Sandy’s one-year anniversary, Monmouth released a survey specifically of victims displaced from their homes. This poll found that only 38 percent of hardest-hit New Jerseyans were satisfied with recovery efforts.

The biggest issue we uncovered is that most victims don’t know where they stand in the aid process. As one Toms River applicant for ReNew Jersey Stronger assistance stated, "We were informed that we were wait-listed, (but) do not know how or why." Imagine how these victims feel when they learn about millions in Sandy funds underwriting senior housing in Belleville or an apartment tower in New Brunswick.

Now the Sandy recovery is mixed in with the scandals surrounding the governor’s office. That means everyone involved in investigating these issues must exercise restraint, while implementing full transparency when it comes to Sandy aid.

To this end, I propose the following:

1. Get off TV. Lawmakers must refrain from discussing Bridgegate, Hobokengate or any other element of the investigation in the media. The rush for the national spotlight, especially among Democrats, is undermining the credibility of an inquiry that poses significant consequences for both Christie and the state. The only time members of the special investigations committee should face the cameras is during a public hearing.

2. Greater bipartisanship. The special investigations committee should add two Republican members to increase the partisan balance and ensure that those in the minority fully participate in deliberations about evidence and procedures.

3. Compel immediate transparency on Sandy aid. All Sandy-related community block grants awarded to date should be posted on the state’s website. The governor vetoed legislation that would have required this as "redundant." His decision now looks like it had ulterior motives. If first lady Mary Pat Christie’s charity can post all of its Sandy awards online, so can her husband’s administration.

4. Let Sandy victims know where they stand. A proposed "Bill of Rights" should allow residents who applied for ReNew Jersey Stronger aid to track the status of their application online, including for which programs they are considered eligible, the potential amounts they may receive, how many other applicants are ahead of them, and when their name is expected to reach the top of the list.

5. Launch a truly independent investigation into Sandy aid disbursements.Given the governor’s foot-dragging and questionable appointment of his own "integrity monitor," the Legislature should recommend a short list of independent special investigators specifically to oversee and report on the distribution of all Sandy aid to communities and individual residents. The governor should appoint an investigator from that list. If he doesn’t do so within 30 days, the appointment should be made by Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner.

Considering the damage inflicted on the state by Hurricane Sandy and the potential damage posed by the Bridgegate investigation, New Jersey deserves a full and fair hearing and complete transparency. Anything less is unacceptable.

True or Not, Wildstein Letter Hurts “Christie 2016”

Cross-posted at PolitickerNJ 

Former NY/NJ Port Authority exec David Wildstein claims to know of “evidence” that contradicts Chris Christie’s statements about when he knew of Bridgegate.  If true, the governor’s political career is all but over. If false, the governor’s political ambitions have still suffered a serious, and potentially permanent, setback.  It all hinges on his effectiveness as RGA chair. 

In a letter to the Port Authority, Wildstein’s lawyer states that “evidence exists …. tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference [January 9].”

A Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press Poll conducted in the days after that press conference found that most New Jerseyans did not believe that the governor was being completely honest about when he found out about the George Washington Bridge toll lane closures. In other words, they were willing to cut him some slack if he actually found out about his staff’s involvement earlier than he has told us. However, they did not believe he was involved in the closure decision itself.

In its initial reaction to the latest charges, the Christie administration parsed the text of the letter and their own response very carefully.  Rather than refer to the governor’s January 9th statements they went back to an earlier press conference, saying that “[a]s the governor said in a December 13th press conference, he only first learned lanes were closed when it was reported by the press.”

In fact, the first press report on the lane closures was in a traffic column in The Record published on September 13 – the last day of the lane closures.  Thus the governor can claim that he never said he did not know about the incident at all “during the period when the lanes were closed.”  In so doing, Christie’s camp asserts that “Mr. Wildstein's lawyer confirms what the governor has said all along - he had absolutely no prior knowledge.”

The governor has proven to be a very accomplished word parser in extracting himself from apparent contradictions.  However, this one is skating very close to the Bill Clinton “it depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” territory.  It’s not clear how much more parsing the public will accept.

Are the charges true?  We really don’t know.  It’s clear that Wildstein has ulterior motives, the most obvious of which is he needs to be able to pay for his defense.  There is an oblique and intriguing reference to Port Authority Commissioner David Samson being copied on prior correspondence but not later correspondence after Samson was implicated in the potential misuse of Sandy recovery funds.   Is there an implicit threat to the Port Authority in this letter as well?

While Wildstein enjoyed having a position of power in the Christie administration he was never the Christie loyalist that some in the media have made him out to be.  He is a person who relishes being at the center of the political action, which is what makes him so dangerous to Christie.

The Christie circle realizes that. Otherwise the administration would not have sent out a scathing email on Friday eviscerating David Wildstein’s veracity. The fact that this email came from one of the administration’s press officers, and not from the campaign or an outside group, is an indication that the Christie camp is more than a little scared.  As well they should be, because true or not, the damage has been done.

Let’s assume that none of the allegations in the letter are true; that no such “evidence” that Christie lied about what he knew ever surfaces. If this investigation peters out in the next few months, Chris Christie has more than enough time to rebuild his reputation before the 2016 campaign gets underway in earnest. 

Christie may even garner some sympathy from conservative Republicans nationwide who are skeptical of his ideology.  Christie can paint this whole episode as a political witch-hunt designed to undermine the GOP’s best hope of winning the White House.  In the long term, Christie can regain his reputation.  But he will suffer short-term hits that will undercut his strategy for 2016.

First is the Christie persona that he can get things done, even with a legislature controlled by the opposite party.  Even before the Bridgegate scandal hit, there was no expectation that Christie’s second term agenda would be particularly ambitious.  He needed to propose a big idea or two – that didn’t need to go anywhere – and focus on balancing a budget without any tax increases.

He still had some ability to provide some direct benefits to legislative leaders and their allies in the forms of funneling grant money their way, greenlighting charter schools in favored areas, etc.  This would have been enough for him to still hold a strong hand in the budgeting process this year.

Months ago, the Democratic National Committee began to run web ads on attacking Christie on the lane closures before there was any direct link to his administration.  Powerful Democratic boss George Norcross basically told them to lay off Christie.

That was then.  Last week, before the Wildstein attorney letter was published, the state Democratic chair issued a scathing letter encouraging his fellow Democrats to hold Christie’s feet to the fire on this.  That letter wouldn’t have been issued without the tacit approval of all factions of the party, including the Norcross wing.

Why?  The political risks to Democrats own futures now outweigh any of the transactional benefits they may have got from working with Christie.  They can’t afford to be seen as having Christie’s back – particularly with a contested Democratic primary for governor looming in the near future.   And that is going to make life tough for Christie the leader.

The other problem for Chris Christie is how these new revelations impact his effectiveness as chair of the Republican Governor’s Association.  There are more than 30 contested gubernatorial contests this year, including key states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.  Gov. Christie was going to be spending a lot of time in these states campaigning with and – most importantly – raising money for the GOP candidates in these races.

There is no question that Christie would have been the biggest fundraising draw any of the candidates will have this year.  And that would mean a lot when it comes time to call in chits for support in 2016 primaries and caucuses.

This was all part of the Christie team’s grand plan to squeeze out all other “establishment” contenders for the GOP presidential nomination.  It would leave him alone among a gaggle of conservative true-believers who would split voter support.  This would provide Christie the opening to galvanize moderate support and navigate through the crucial early contests until he became the inevitable nominee.

The lynchpin in all this was earning the early endorsements of party leaders, both nationally and in the early battleground states.  Christie’s RGA chairmanship would be the vehicle to make this happen.

As of this now, Republican leaders have not publicly abandoned him.  But these latest charges have made them nervous.  The danger is whether GOP candidates begin to feel that the political risk of being associated with Christie outweighs his fundraising power?  Their elections are this November.  They don’t have time to wait and see if Christie can get clear of these accusations.

Without a way to earn those chits as the party’s fundraiser-in-chief, Chris Christie will be just one of the pack in 2016.  And these charges, even if they are ultimately proven false, will have done permanent damage to Christie’s presidential aspirations.