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Fairleigh Dickinson University's
PublicMind
On Target in New Jersey Senate Race
PublicMind
accurately predicted the margin of victory for Frank Lautenberg over
Doug Forrester in the recent U.S. Senate race in New Jersey. As noted
by PoliticsNJ.com, New Jersey's
online political network, most independent polls were generally accurate,
but PublicMind's November 1 survey came the closest, exactly pegging
the final outcome. "FDU predicted the 10-point margin correctly," reported
PoliticsNJ.
PublicMind announced
as early as May that U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli was "in trouble" because
of public perceptions concerning ethical lapses. In fact, the May poll
reported that a large plurality of independent voters agreed with GOP
supporters that Torricelli should be replaced. A September 27th
poll showed that even self-identified Democrats could not describe the
incumbent senator as more "honest and trustworthy" than the Republican
challenger. The Senator withdrew from the race a few days later.
PublicMind polls
were reported and discussed in the national media, including such prominent
and specialized forums as CNN's The Capital Gang, Larry Sabato's
Crystal Ball Web site, and Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol
Hill.
PublicMind continues
its track record of accurate measurement of public opinion. Last
year, during the race for New Jersey Governor, PublicMind's November
5 poll, released the day before the election, showed that Democrat Jim
McGreevey held a lead of 15.2 percentage points over Republican Brett
Schundler. McGreevey was elected--the final margin of victory was
14.3%.
"We're very pleased
that our findings again so closely matched the final outcome," says
Executive Director Peter Woolley. "We're committed to accurately capturing
public opinion on a wide variety of subjects; these results reflect
the capacities of a great team of analysts, methodologists, project
managers, and professional interviewers."
Fairleigh Dickinson
University's PublicMind conducts polling and survey research on politics,
popular culture, consumer and economic trends. In addition to the Senate
race, polls this year were conducted on the state's budget, perceptions
of the governor and the proposal for a new sports arena in Newark, N.J.
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FDU Public Relations
Contact: Gretchen
Johnson 201.692.7032
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