A “Little” Problem for Senator Kyrillos

Bad pun, I know. But this is serious business, Save Jerseyans.

In case you missed it today, Fairleigh Dickinson University’s pollsters released the results of their latest public survey; notably, they found that ”Menendez, running for his second full term in November, would win 43 percent against both Kyrillos and Little, who would both win 31 percent, according to the PublicMind poll of 800 registered voters.”

You can read the complete FDU polling report here.

Nothing really newsworthy here, folks. We’ve known that Bob Menendez is vulnerable. He’s an empty suit with a machine past. It’s a shame that neither of these are automatic disqualifiers for a politician. Indeed, finding a candidate with enough money, name recognition and statewide political clout to overcome this state’s unfortunate Democrat-tilt is the real (and seemingly never-ending) challenge for the NJGOP.

The Kyrillos expoloratory committee is naturally adopting a positive outlook. It shared the following memo with Save Jersey:

To: Kyrillos for Senate Exploratory Committee

From: Adam Geller

Re: FDU poll

The takeaway from today’s FDU poll is Bob Menendez is very vulnerable and this is a real opportunity for a good candidate to defeat him. Any incumbent under 50% is in trouble and Menendez is under 45%, which means he is in major trouble.  That is Jon Corzine territory.

Joe Kyrillos, even though not yet a candidate, would make a very strong opponent for Menendez because of his personal and fundraising base and his consistently strong fiscally conservative voting record in New Jersey.

I would also note that only 28% of voters think the country is headed in the right direction. That is a terrible number for an incumbent arguing that he ought to be re-elected.

The bottom line of this poll is that if Joe Kyrillos were to jump into this race, Bob Menendez is in serious trouble.

I can’t go toe-to-toe with the venerable Adam Geller’s polling prowess, Save Jerseyans. The man knows his business (he was Governor Christie’s numbers man in 2009).

That said, it’s worth pointing out how Jon Corzine was up for re-election in 2009… an “off” year in the sense that there weren’t any federal elections. With President Obama headlining the Democrat column in 2012, Hudson Bob will have an infinitely easier time turning out his base in Democrat strongholds than Corzine did without the benefit of a media-consuming presidential contest. Democrats still enjoy a large registration advantage in New Jersey, too.

But forget about November for a moment. Let’s look at June. Frankly, the biggest (and worst news) for in this latest poll is Senator Kyrillos’s uncomfortable statistical proximity to Tea Party darling Anna Little. Their respective name ID outside of their regions is virtually nonexistent; sure, this can be remedied in time with enough money. Kyrillos has some good people around him.

However, before we even cross that bridge, the NJGOP may be looking at a full-on, Christie v. Longan ’09-style primary for the right to take on Menendez in November. I like the Senator’s chances. The problem is that he may have to work much harder than anticipated or risk being “Schundlered.” Yeah, I made that word up.

Keep it here for updates.