In New Jersey, Giuliani's exit favors McCain

New Jersey's political leaders responded to yesterday's double dropout in the presidential primaries by scrambling into the camps of the front-runners. Some made the jump within hours, while others put off formal announcements until today.

Their enthusiasm for making new friends, though, left open the big question: Where will Republican Rudy Giuliani's and Democrat John Edwards' voters go?

Giuliani made it clear where he wants his supporters to land by endorsing Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), who had begun to overtake the former New York mayor in recent statewide polls. New Jersey is one of 24 states involved in the Super Tuesday contests - next Tuesday - with 52 Republican delegates and 127 Democratic delegates at stake.

"I expect the lion's share [of Giuliani's voters] to go to McCain," said Peter Woolley, director of the PublicMind Poll at Fairleigh Dickinson University. "In most polls I've looked at, you can see very clearly the beneficiary of every point of decline from Giuliani was a point of incline for McCain."

On the Democratic side, Edwards' support was "melting away anyway in New Jersey," Woolley said.

Where Edwards' backers will turn is more difficult to predict, he said, but he suspects they will divide almost equally into the camps of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D., N.Y.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.).

Polls have shown Clinton with a comfortable lead over Obama in New Jersey, although Obama has cut into it somewhat since the early days of the campaign. Edwards has consistently run a distant third in New Jersey polls, but the 10 percentage points he typically polled will be pursued by the other campaigns.

Marlene Alexoff, 74, a retired teacher living in Haddonfield, is one of the melted-away Edwards supporters. She made up her mind to support Obama after watching Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's rousing endorsement speech Monday. And, she's pragmatic. With Edwards' failure to grow, she concluded he wouldn't get delegates from New Jersey.

"If Obama were nominated and elected, it would be like practicing what we preach and raise our stature internationally," she said.

In the Republican race, Giuliani enjoyed an early lead in New Jersey, but McCain erased it in recent polls. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had been running a distant third.

Some New Jersey Republicans who had supported Giuliani plan to announce support for McCain in a Statehouse news conference today.

McCain's New Jersey chairman, State Sen. Bill Baroni (R., Mercer), said: "Our goal in the McCain camp is to bring our party together."

He believes that even in a state that hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1988, "McCain puts New Jersey in play for November."

But the cochairman for Romney's campaign, State Sen. Joseph M. Kyrillos Jr., said he believed Giuliani voters were "splitting in a number of directions." Since Tuesday night, when Giuliani was flaming out in the Florida primary, Kyrillos said, the former New York mayor's supporters had been calling and e-mailing him.

"I think this thing is going to be tighter than people think around America. I think it's going to be much more interesting in New Jersey than people think," he said.

Yesterday afternoon, the Clinton campaign took endorsements from some former Edwards supporters, including Mike Beeson, his state director, State Sen. Stephen M. Sweeney (D., Gloucester) and State Sen. Joseph F. Vitale (D., Middlesex).

Sources said Edwards' leading supporter, Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex), would be announcing his support for Obama later today.

State Sen. John H. Adler (D., Camden), who is stumping for Obama, said it would be too speculative to say where Edwards' voters would go. But he believes Edwards touched a raw nerve of frustration with a message about fighting poverty and the slipping middle class.

"I am confident that all the people Edwards reached are going to be voting in the general election," he said. "These are people who are frustrated by the difference between rich and poor in our country and the shrinking hope people in the middle class have."