Candidates usually push internal polls to show they’re outpacing expectations or, specifically, to rebut public polling.
It’s unusual for a candidate to push a campaign poll that verifies their own endangered status.
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Yet that exactly what Tom Malinowski apparently did on Wednesday, Save Jerseyans, releasing an internal poll showing the two-term Democrat incumbent tied with Republican challenger Tom Kean Jr. in a hypothetical general election match-up:
NJ-07 Malinowski internal:
Malinowski (D-Inc): 46%
Kean (R): 46%Bad news for Malinowski – tied with Kean at this point of the race and for it to be an internal. If the environment continues to slip for Dems, this has triage potentialhttps://t.co/AzaWC6BPK1
— Blake Allen (@Blake_Allen13) February 16, 2022
Kean has a primary but – with one county line in hand and one million in the bank – is considered the early front runner.
He fell short of defeating Malinowski by 4,000 votes in 2020 in a bluer cycle (with a bluer pre-redistricting district).
