FDU poll finds Congressman Andy Kim has big lead over First Lady Tammy Murphy in NJ Senate primary
NEW JERSEY – While First Lady Tammy Murphy has racked up endorsements in the race for the Senate seat currently held by embattled Senator Bob Menendez, she trails in support among Democratic primary voters.
According to the latest results from the FDU Poll, Congressman Andy Kim, who has represented New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional district since 2019, leads Murphy 32 to 20 among likely Democratic primary voters, with 31 percent saying that they are still undecided.
“Generally, institutional support is enough to win a primary in New Jersey,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the director of the poll. “With Murphy down, this election is a test of whether county organizations still have the power to choose a candidate.”
Menendez, the incumbent, holds the support of nine percent of Democratic primary voters, and labor activist Patricia Campos-Medina has eight percent support. Kim’s 12-point lead among all Democratic primary voters is substantially larger among self-identified liberals (40 to 19, with 49 percent of Democratic primary voters identifying as “liberal”) and progressives (43 to 18, with 41 percent identifying). Murphy holds a lead among smaller groups of Democrats, like those who identify as conservatives (7 percent of Democratic Primary voters). Note that respondents were able to pick as many identifiers as they wanted.
Murphy also has a substantial advantage in name recognition, with 68 percent of Democratic primary voters saying that they know who she is, compared to 52 percent for Kim. Despite that, Kim has an advantage in favorability, with 24 percent saying that they “strongly approve” of him, compared with 13 percent for Murphy. Only 2 percent of Democratic primary voters say that they disapprove (strongly or somewhat) of Kim; Murphy’s disapproval is at 14 percent. The incumbent, Menendez, has 90 percent name recognition, but a majority of Democratic primary voters (53 percent) say that they “strongly” disapprove of him. Only 14 percent say that they recognize Campos-Medina.
Interestingly, Kim is viewed as being more liberal than either Murphy or Menendez. Voters who said that they recognized a candidate were asked to rate them on a 1 to 10, liberal to conservative, scale. Eleven percent put Kim in the most liberal spot (1 out of 10), while only 5 percent did the same for Murphy. Overall, Kim had a mean ranking of 3.9, compared to 4.5 for Murphy on the liberal to conservative scale. Menendez was ranked at 4.9.
“Neither Murphy nor Kim are hard left candidates, and there’s not a whole lot of room between their issue positions,” said Cassino. “But the perceived link between Murphy and the state’s Democratic power brokers is leading Democrats to see her as more conservative than Kim.”
Support in the race also breaks down along racial lines. Kim has a commanding lead among white Democratic primary voters (47 to 15), and a smaller lead among Asian-Americans (34 to 24). However, Murphy leads among Black voters (24 to 16) and has a large lead among Hispanic voters (26 to 10). Among Hispanic Democratic Primary voters, both Menendez (15 percent) and Campos-Medina (13 percent) poll as well or better than Kim.
“The real fight here is between white liberals, who are largely backing Kim, and more moderate Black and Hispanic voters, who are lining up behind Murphy,” said Cassino. “Kim has always run as a centrist candidate, but these liberal voters dislike the county organizations enough that they’ve adopted him as one of their own.”
Other aspects of the race, including match-ups with potential Republican challengers for Murphy and Kim, the effect of sexism on support for Murphy, the effect of stereotypes about Asian-American men on support for Kim, and the effect of the race on Governor Murphy’s approval, will be the subject of forthcoming releases.
The FDU Poll is in the top tier of polls nationwide. Poll aggregator Five Thirty-Eight has released its new rankings of polls ranking FDU 31st in the country, out of more than 500.
The rankings look at the error associated with a poll’s predictions and the degree to which the poll makes its methodology transparent. The FDU Poll scored high on both measures, with a pollscore accuracy ranking of -0.6 (lower figures represent less error and bias), and a transparency score of 8/10.
These scores are impressive when compared with other institutions. The overall ranking is better than that of many well-known polling groups like Gallup (35), Pew (38), SurveyMonkey (75) and Rasmussen (89).
