New Jersey youth have their say

In schools across New Jersey, students participated in a mock election. A total of 264,000 students participated in the election from 677 schools.

This type of practical education both motivates students to vote when they are eligible and educates students about one of the most important events of our country. In an alarming statistic, only 73 percent of people know the names of both presidential candidates when not given any cues. With some provocation, that number rises to only 80%. Educating our youth before they are old enough to vote will increase their political knowledge and therefore increase their efficacy to vote.

The results of this mock election are not surprising, coming from youth in New Jersey: Obama received 67.5 percent, McCain received 29.7 percent.

10 days to the general election

Not surprisingly, Obama still has a significant lead in New Jersey polls with 52.5 percent to McCain's 40.6 percent. These are Pollster.com's averaged numbers. In the most recent poll from Marist conducted October 20-21, 56 percent supported Obama and only 39 percent supported McCain.

Local elections in New Jersey are more exciting than the contest for the White House. The incumbent is Democrat Frank Lautenberg who has held the senate seat since 1982
The challenger is also a washington veteran; Republican Dick Zimmer. Zimmer held a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997. Since then he has worked at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, L.L.P. as counsel.

In a recent Monmouth University/Gannett poll, Lautenberg, has surpassed Zimmer with 52 percent to 36 percent.

For New Jersey, as with many other states, the economy reigns as the most important issue in both presidential and local elections. The two candidates had their latest debate last week and the main topic was the economic crisis. Zimmer dissaproved of the economic bail out, claiming that tax payers were burdened by the plan and that only the institutions benefitted. Lautenberg voted for the bailout as a viable rescue plan.

Lautenberg also said that voters in New Jersey need only to look at the presidential candidates to make their decision about the U.S. Senate election. Lautenberg seems to be capitalizing on Obama's popularity in the state and understands that when large numbers of voters turn out to vote for Obama, they will also vote for the Senate seat. The combination of a massive influx of new Democrats, straight-ticket Democrats, expected high voterturnout (which favors Democrats) and Lautenberg with the incumbent advantage in a very Democratic state, he knows that Obama at the top of the ticket can carry him to another term.

With voter turnout expected to be extremely high in NJ this year, clergy in the state have publicly advised state officials to be prepared, suggesting keeping the polls open for an extra hour or making sure the polling locations have extra staff people to handle the long lines. The clergy's main concern was for urban polling areas.

Current Governor, Jon Corzine, initially endorsed Clinton but has recently been an advoate for Obama's economic policies. He has been on NBC, CBS and even the Daily Show as a surrogate for Obama. Not all New Jersey citizens support their governor, however, especially those who do not support Obama. Many see Corzine's support of Obama's economic policies as a bad reflection on their governer's state policies and expertise, which were rated "fair at best" by 47 precent in a Monmouth/Gannett poll.

NJ beats personal record in voter registration

This small state has surpassed itself as 5,127,790 people are already registered to vote this cycle, which is 330,445 more voters than November last year. A large amount of these new registrants are Democrats with 1.7 million to 1 million registered Republicans. However, un-affiliated voters make up the majority of this surge with 2.3 million total registered voters.

The striking increase in registration is highly concentrated in the smaller, midland areas rather than the larger cities. The Supervisor of Elections in Atlantic County, John Mooney, attributes this trend to the efforts of the Motor Vehicle Commission, which sent out 800,000 notification letters to anyone who visited a local MVC between 2004 and 2008.

NJ uses mail-in votes to prepare for surge of voters.

New Jersey has allowed all voters to mail in their ballots for three years now. With such an increase in voters, which states are predicting will happen with this cycle, current infrastructures cannot support a surge of people at the voting booths. Other states, California and Colorado, have followed suit. This not only will would help ease the strains on employees at the voting booths, but it would also encourage many voters to actually cast their ballot, since so many other factors - such as the weather - prevent too many people from coming out to vote.

50 Days to General Election

New Jersey is one of the tried and true blue states, especially in this election. Several factors make Obama a favorite in this North Eastern state.


1996 General Election Results:
Clinton/Gore (D) with 1,436,206 votes *State and national winner
Bush/Quayle (R) with 1,356, 865 votes

2000 General Election Results:
Gore/Lieberman (D) with 1,788,850 votes *State winner
Bush/ Cheney (R) with 1,284, 173 votes *National winner

2004 General Election Results:
Kerry/Edwards (D) with 1,911,430 votes *State winner
Bush/Cheney (R) with 1,670, 003 votes *National winner

New Jersey is Democratic across the board for national seats.
Current governor, Jon Corzine, held a U.S. Senate seat from 2000-2005 and won the gubernatorial election in 2005. His term will be up in 2010. Corzine orginally supported Clinton and pledged to vote for her as a superdelegate in NJ, even after allying himself with Obama in 2004. Clinton won the NJ primary by at 54-44% margin. With Clinton gone from the race, Corzine now supports Obama. Corzine states that the economy is the biggest concern of NJ citizens and Obama must speak to this state on this issue to win its support. In July, Corzine joined Obama at an economic summit. Just after the summit, Corzine praised Obama's ability to objectively and reasonably address the nation's economic problems.

Democratic Senator, Frank Lautenberg, has held a Senate seat for NJ since 1982. He will be up for re-election this cycle. Sen. Lautenberg recently called upon the Jewish community in NJ to support Obama this November:

"I'm standing before you today to gather the Jewish community together to make a push to support Obama," Lautenberg said. "We need to roll up our sleeves and get the word out that Obama is our candidate."

Lautenberg appealed to concerns for Isreal's protection, stating that Obama is the candidate who has the ability to target the real terrorists by pulling troops out of Iraq to focus on more attainable security in the Middle East.

Democratic Senator, Robert Menendez, was appointed his position in Janurary 2006 after Corzine left his senate seat to become governor. Menendez won his seat officially later that year. He will be up for re-election in 2012. Menendez is also a strong supportor of Obama.

Historically, the candidate on the losing end of the NJ primary has not been elected as president in the general election. This year, NJ went to Clinton, but with Clinton out of the race the state's leaders have turned their support to Obama.

In polls, Obama is leading on McCain. As of September 14, according to pollster.com, Obama leads with 49% and McCain follows with 42.5%.

Another notable characteristic about NJ is that there are more Democrats registered to vote than Republicans. 23.7% percent of registered voters are Democrats - a total of 1,150,184
people. Republicans make up 18.3% with a total of 890,118 people. With a succesful GOTV campaign, Democrats can take on nearly any election in the state.

With a tradition of electing a Democrat to the white house, Democratic national leaders across the board who all support Obama, a constant lead in polls, if the election were to take place today Obama would take NJ.