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Cory Booker on track for U.S. Senate seat as New Jersey voters go to the polls
Newark Mayor Cory Booker. PHOTO/Mel Evans/AP
(Reuters) – Cory Booker, the popular and charismatic mayor of New Jersey’s largest city, is heavily favored to beat conservative activist Steve Lonegan when voters head to the polls on Wednesday in a special election to fill New Jersey’s vacant U.S. Senate seat.
A Quinnipiac poll on Tuesday found Booker, the Democrat mayor of Newark, ahead of Republican Lonegan, a former small-town mayor with limited name recognition but a flair for attention-grabbing events, by a margin of 54 to 40 percent.
David Redlawsk, the director of the Eagleton poll, which in a poll released on Monday gave Booker a 58 to 36 percent lead over Lonegan, said the race will come down to turn-out.
“Here’s the key: if the Booker campaign can turn out urban voters and Democrats who say they will vote, he will be in the range we estimate,” said Redlawsk.
In recent weeks, Lonegan, the former state director of Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by the conservative Koch brothers, has appeared to close in on Booker.
But after a series of debate performances in which Lonegan touted his conservatism, applauding Republicans in government for their role in the federal government’s shutdown, Booker began to rebound.
“The debates presented a stark picture of the differences between the candidates, which appears to have led independents to prefer Booker,” said Redlawsk.
