Fairleigh Dickinson University's
PublicMind
On Target in New Jersey Senate Race
see
also:
Tabular Results as reported by PoliticsNJ.com
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.
FDU Public Relations
Contact: Gretchen Johnson 201.692.7032