The Race for Senate:
the Unpopular versus the Unknown

September 25, 2002

Can one of the nation's most vulnerable senate incumbents be ousted by an unseasoned challenger, who—six weeks before the election—remains unknown to nearly half of the state's voters?

According to the most recent Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind survey, Democratic Senator Bob Torricelli is politically vulnerable even though nearly half of New Jersey's likely voters have never heard of his GOP challenger Doug Forrester. The survey found that among likely voters, GOP candidate Douglas Forrester outpaced Democratic incumbent Robert Torricelli by a margin of 42% to 38%. (See Table 1.)

In addition, 5% of voters say they are leaning towards Torricelli, while another 5% say they are leaning towards Forrester. 9% of voters remain unsure, and another 1% say they will vote for some other candidate. Since Forrester's 4-point lead falls within the poll's margin of error, the race is statistically a dead heat.

The survey of 601 likely New Jersey voters was conducted from September 18 to 23 and has a margin of error of ± 4 percentage points.

Among voters who identify themselves as Democrats, 63% say they will vote for Torricelli. By contrast, 76% percent of Republicans say they will support Forrester. New Jersey's independents are breaking slightly toward Forrester, 37% to 34%—but the difference among independents falls within the margin of error for the subset of independent voters, and 16% of self-described independent voters remain undecided. Dr. Bruce Larson, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University and a survey analyst for the PublicMind poll commented that "the winner of this contest, as with any statewide election in New Jersey, must hold his partisan base and get significant support from the state's substantial bloc of independent voters. On both counts, Torricelli is having less success than Forrester."

Among African-American voters, only half say they would support Torricelli if the election were held today. (By contrast, in an October 2001 PublicMind poll, 76% of African American voters said they would support Democrat Jim McGreevey for governor.) While another 8% of African-Americans lean to Torricelli, 15% remain unsure, and 24% say they will support Forrester. Torricelli is also doing worse among Hispanic and female voters than New Jersey Democrats generally do. "Torricelli is having difficulty mobilizing support among usually reliable Democratic constituencies" said Dr. Larson. "He is not doing as well as he should be with minority voters, and he is only breaking even among women voters and union households."

With a razor-thin Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, Democratic Party leaders—including Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD)—have urged voters in this Democratic-leaning state to overlook Torricelli's ethical problems in order to keep the Senate under Democratic control. Some voters find the argument compelling. More than half of Democrats agree that "A critical reason to vote for Bob Torricelli is to prevent Trent Lott and other very conservative Republicans from becoming leaders of the U.S. Senate." (See Table 2.)

But, as Dr. Larson noted, "for most voters deciding how to cast their ballots in November, partisan control of the Senate will most likely be less important than how they perceive the individual candidates." On this measure, Torricelli has cause for concern. Only 29% of likely voters believe that he has done a good enough job as U.S. senator to deserve reelection, while 59% say they would rather see a new person in the job. (See Table 3.) Moreover, Torricelli's unfavorable ratings outnumber his favorable ratings by nearly 10 percentage points—an indication of serious political vulnerability for an incumbent. (See Table 4.) By contrast, Governor Jim McGreevey and U.S Senator Jon Corzine—New Jersey's two other elected statewide officials—both enjoy substantial favorable-to-unfavorable ratios.

"Still," noted Larson, "for all of Torricelli's troubles, a bright spot exists for his campaign-- few New Jersey voters seem to know much about GOP challenger Douglas Forrester—or even who he is, for that matter." Although Forrester is rated favorably by a substantial majority of voters who know of him, fully 47% of New Jersey's likely voters have never heard of him. Not surprisingly, 55% of Forrester's supporters said that they are voting more against Bob Torricelli than for Doug Forrester. (See Table 5.)

Poll Analysis

Fairleigh Dickinson Professor, Dr. Bruce Larson can be reached at (973) 443-8727