NJ-7 Dem race still wide open, per Shah internal poll from February

DISCLAIMER: Polls can be a helpful tool for understanding elections, but they are an imperfect one, as demonstrated by New Jersey’s three most recent statewide general elections, all of which had results substantially different from what nearly every pollster had projected. Poll results should be treated as data points and guideposts in complex elections, not as ironclad predictions of what will happen; the same is doubly true for internal polls, which are conducted with a specific agenda and candidate in mind. (This disclaimer will appear on all future New Jersey Globe polling stories.)

With just over two months to go until the New Jersey primaries, the four-way Democratic primary in the 7th congressional district is still wide open, according to an internal poll from one of the contenders that was in the field last month.

The poll of 403 likely Democratic primary voters in the competitive district, commissioned by Tina Shah and conducted by GQR in late February, found that a whopping 64% of voters are undecided for now. Ten percent of voters opt for Rebecca Bennett, 8% for Shah, 5% for Megan O’Rourke, 4% for Brian Varela, and 3% for Michael Roth; O’Rourke ended her campaign after the poll left the field.

For now, before any of the candidates have started investing heavily in TV advertising or other forms of direct voter outreach, none of the candidates are very well known to the district’s voters; all of them had name recognition numbers between 22% and 33%.

But the poll argues that of the four remaining contenders, it’s Shah who has the most room to grow once voters do start to tune in. After being read positive biographies for each candidate, Shah jumps into the lead with 32%, followed by Bennett with 17%, Varela with 10%, O’Rourke with 7%, and Roth with 6%. (The biographies are not public, but the New Jersey Globe reviewed them for fairness and accuracy.)

In the month since the poll was in the field, Bennett has begun to seem more like the primary’s frontrunner, winning endorsements from four of the district’s six county Democratic organizations and raising the most money of anyone in the field, though all four candidates will have plenty of cash to work with for the next two months.

Bennett’s foes, though, will argue that she’s only a frontrunner under the old rules of New Jersey politics, and that there’s still plenty of time to sway Democratic primary voters – voters who are above all interested in defeating Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield). More than any of her competitors, Shah largely bypassed the county convention process on the theory that, in the post-county line era, there aren’t many votes to be gained from winning party endorsements.

Shah is instead set to spend the next two months using the more than $1 million she’s raised appealing directly to the voters themselves, and if her poll is right, she may have a lot of upside when she does.

No matter who wins the primary, Democrats are likely to target the 7th district heavily this year. Kean won re-election by five percentage points in 2024, but his district voted for Gov. Mikie Sherrill last year and both parties now consider it to be the most competitive seat in the state.

The GQR poll was conducted on behalf of Tina Shah’s campaign from February 22-25 with a sample size of 403 likely Democratic primary voters in New Jersey’s 7th congressional district and a margin of error of +/- 4.9%.