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.)
Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) has a clear lead in his bid for re-election but could be vulnerable under the right circumstances, according to a new poll sponsored by his Democratic primary opponent, Mussab Ali.
The poll of 416 likely Democratic primary voters in the 8th congressional district, conducted by the Center for Strategic Politics, gives Menendez a 42% to 27% advantage over Ali, a former president of the Jersey City Board of Education, with 31% undecided. (CSP is a fairly new polling outlet that has not polled a New Jersey race before.)
Margin-wise, that’s not far off Menendez’s 52%-38% win in his 2024 primary against then-Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, who made many of the same anti-Menendez arguments that Ali is now pitching to voters. It’s also in line with the widespread perception that Menendez, first elected in 2022, is the substantial favorite to win another term this year.
But the poll argues that if voters learn more about the race on Ali’s terms, the contest could become more competitive. After being read generally positive biographies of both candidates, Ali leads 41% to 37%; after being read negative biographies that hit Menendez for his father’s corruption conviction and Ali for being more interested in “political theater than effective governance,” Ali leads 43% to 33%.
One of Ali’s chief challenges, though, will be communicating that message to voters in the face of Menendez’s enormous financial advantage; as of the end of March, Menendez had just over $1 million in his campaign account, while Ali had $98,000. Given that disparity, it’s likely that far more voters will hear Menendez’s messaging about Ali than the other way around.
Menendez and Ali both start out with fairly middling approval ratings, per the poll: Menendez’s favorable-unfavorable ratio is 42%-32%, while Ali’s is 28%-20%.
Prior to the head-to-head ballot test, the poll asked voters questions about Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Menendez-supporting group that Ali has sought to make a top campaign issue. Forty-nine percent of Democratic primary voters said a candidate being endorsed by AIPAC would make them less likely to support that candidate, while just 16% said it would make them more likely to support them; by a 42% to 17% margin, respondents said they support Palestine over Israel in the ongoing Middle East conflict.
Eighty-one percent of respondents said they support Medicare for All, another key Ali campaign plank, and 64% said they’d be less likely to support a candidate who takes contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, as Menendez does.
“If the Democratic primary for NJ-8 was held today, incumbent Rob Menendez would be favored over progressive challenger Mussab Ali,” the polling memo states. “But … on topics from Israel to healthcare, Menendez is taking positions that don’t align with his constituents.”
During the 2024 race, Bhalla and his allies released several internal polls showing a close race, one putting Menendez up 44%-41% and another finding the congressman trailing 33%-28%. Pro-Menendez forces released a poll of their own that found the congressman leading 46%-24%; the final margin ended up being somewhere in between the two campaigns’ numbers.
The 2024 race was far more expensive than the 2026 race is shaping up to be: both Menendez and Bhalla spent more than $2 million on their campaigns, while outside groups flooded the district with millions more. Menendez also has no shortage of allies to fall back on this June, from the Hudson County Democratic Organization – which was instrumental in his 2024 victory – to politicians like Senator Andy Kim and Hoboken Mayor Emily Jabbour, who are affiliated with more reform-minded wings of the party.
The Center for Strategic Politics poll was conducted on behalf of Mussab Ali’s campaign from April 11-16 with a sample size of 416 likely Democratic primary voters in New Jersey’s 8th congressional district and a margin of error of +/- 4.8%. The poll was conducted in both English and Spanish.
