Poll: MacArthur leads Belgard by 10 in South Jersey race

WASHINGTON – A new poll says Republican Tom MacArthur has a 10 point lead over Democrat Aimee Belgard in the race for a South Jersey congressional seat, signaling that what was thought to be the toughest race in the region may not turn out so close after all.

MacArthur won support from 51 percent of likely voters in the district compared to 41 percent for Belgard, a Burlington County freeholder, according to the Monmouth University poll released Tuesday. Only 6 percent were undecided and the rest said they would support an alternate candidate in the contest to replace U.S. Rep. Jon Runyan (R., N.J.), who is retiring. The district includes much of Burlington and Ocean counties.

"This is not turning out to be the horse race that Democrats had hoped," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The Washington-based Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has hammered MacArthur with attack ads for weeks, making Belgard's race a top priority. But the poll indicates that the assault hasn't worked. Unless Belgard can rally, it appears that no House seat in the region will change parties, despite four retirements in the Philadelphia area.

The DCCC recently canceled its ad buys in two other local swing districts, the Bucks County-based Pennsylvania eighth and Chester County-based Pennsylvania sixth, indicating that it has lost hope of winning those contests.

In South Jersey, 26 percent of those polled said only MacArthur understands the concerns of third district residents, compared to 23 percent who said only Belgard does and 11 percent who say both do. The result seems to show that Democrats' have failed in their attempts to paint MacArthur as a wealthy outsider (he made millions as the head of an insurance-servicing firm and only moved to the district after Runyan announced that he was retiring, opening up the House seat).

"National Democrats have weighed in with some controversial attacks against MacArthur. It doesn't look like they worked," Murray said.

The political landscape looks dire for Belgard: Burlington is split 46-46 while in Ocean MacArthur leads 58-33, the poll found. The only way for a Democrat to win the right-leaning district, local strategists say, is to score a huge win in Burlington and hold down the GOP margin in Ocean.

Men back MacArthur 58-35, while women are almost evenly split: 45 for Belgard to 44 for MacArthur.

After this poll, "it wouldn't be a surprise to see national Democrats cut and run after making a thorough mess of things," said Ian Prior, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Democrats had high hopes for race after Runyan decided not to run again. President Obama, after all, won the district twice. But the president's standing there has plummeted: only 38 percent of those polled approved of his job performance, while 58 percent disapproved.

The poll was conducted by telephone from Oct. 9 to Oct. 13, 2014 and surveyed 423 likely voters in the district. It has a margin of error of 4.8 percent.

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