Cory Booker Appears Certain to Add to Democrat Majority in Senate

A poll released Tuesday shows Newark Mayor Cory Booker is set to pick up a seat for Democrats and expand their majority in the U.S. Senate as New Jersey voters head to the polls on Wednesday in a special election. Quinnipiac University released a poll on Tuesday morning showing Booker taking 54 percent of likely voters while former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, the Republican candidate, trails with 40 percent. Last week, Quinnipiac had a poll showing Booker up 53 percent to 41 percent for Lonegan.

"It's a New Jersey habit electing Democrats to the Senate, said Maurice Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, on Tuesday. The liberal mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, holds onto the double-digit lead over the conservative former mayor of Bogota, Steve Lonegan, that we measured when we first looked at likely voters."

The poll of 1,696 likely New Jersey voters was taken from Oct. 10-14 and had a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percent.