Booker Gets No Home-Field Edge in New Jersey: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who is struggling for traction in his White House bid, isn’t getting a boost from his home-state Democratic primary voters.

Booker, the former mayor of Newark, received just 5% support among likely Democratic primary voters in the state, according to a survey released Monday by Change Research, a Berkeley, California, firm.

That showing put him in sixth place in New Jersey, behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who got 26%, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts with 23% and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont at 21%. He also trailed South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who got 12% backing, and Senator Kamala Harris of California at 8%.

Nationally, Booker also continues to fall short of top-tier candidates, with just 2.5% of support among Democratic voters in an average of national polls by RealClearPolitics.com.

Booker is still heavily favored to win re-election to his Senate seat in heavily Democratic New Jersey. Even though state law prohibits most candidates from running for two offices at once, the State Legislature came to his aid last year with a new law clarifying that candidates for the Senate or U.S. House can also vie for president or vice president at the same time.

Biden’s Lead May Be Shrinking, Poll Shows (2:40 p.m.)

Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden likes to cite his lead in polls as a reason to support him. He may have to temper his optimism.

A Monmouth University poll released Monday found a virtual three-way tie among Biden at 19% and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who each had 20%.

That’s a far cry from Real Clear Politics’ aggregation of polls that shows Biden well ahead, at 28.8%, followed by Sanders at 16% and Warren at 15.4%

The Monmouth poll’s small sample, 298 people who identify as Democrats or lean toward the party, and its high margin of error of plus or minus 5.7 percentage points could account for some of the discrepancy. And the poll itself could be an anomaly that doesn’t reflect the real state of the race.

Biden pollster John Anzalone was skeptical about the results, pointing out that Biden remains far ahead in surveys with more respondents.

“Can we say ‘outlier?’” he tweeted.

But when Biden’s surrogates cite polls to argue that he’s the most electable candidate, the Monmouth survey could complicate that argument.

Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said that moderate voters “seem to be expressing doubts about Biden” and are looking for one of the left-leaning contenders with high name recognition rather than a more moderate candidate further down in the polls. “The main takeaway from this poll is that the Democratic race has become more volatile,” he said. -- Ryan Teague Beckwith

Trump Says, ‘I Do Nothing for Politics’ (12:30 p.m.)

President Donald Trump has his re-election prospects on his mind -- even when he’s wrestling with weighty international issues fellow heads of state at the G-7.

“I think I’m winning based on polls that we see,” Trump said, speaking Monday at a press conference at the conclusion of a summit in Biarritz, France.

Trump’s remark is at odds with recent polls, which find him losing head-to-head match-ups with the top four Democratic contenders. According to Real Clear Politics’ aggregation of surveys, Joe Biden would defeat the president by almost 9 percentage points; Bernie Sanders by 5.6 points; Elizabeth Warren by 3.2 points; and Kamala Harris by 2.2 points.

In any case, Trump said his 2020 prospects play no role in his approach to matters of state, or decisions such as whether to readmit Russia to the G-7.

“I do nothing for politics,” he said later. “I do what’s right and people like what I do, but I just do what’s right.” -- Alyza Sebenius

Sarah Sanders Launches Candidate-Like Website (11:10 a.m.)

Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders hasn’t announced she’s running for anything, but she’s launched a website that certainly looks like she is.

Sanders, who left the White House in June, has announced that she will soon appear as a Fox News contributor and on Monday launched a personal website that asks people to sign up for updates, which would provide a source of email addresses for potential supporters.

When President Donald Trump announced her departure, he said she would be returning to her home state of Arkansas and suggested he’d heard people express support for Sanders running for governor. Her father, Mike Huckabee, has served both as governor of Arkansas and as a Fox News contributor, so she’d be following in his footsteps.

“If we can get her to run for the governor of Arkansas. I think she’ll do very well. And I--I’m trying to get her to do that,” Trump said.

Sanders describes herself on her website as “a trusted confidante of the President” who “advised him on everything from press and communications strategy to personnel and policy.” As of Monday she also had a page on the Premiere Speakers Bureau for people to request her availability. -- Emma Kinery

Poll Shows Americans Sharply Divided on Values (5:30 A.M.)

Americans aren’t just split by party affiliation, they’re also divided along generational lines, according to an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday.

The survey showed a big difference in values between millennial and Generation Z Americans, those 18 to 38, and Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation, those 55 and up.

Younger voters are far less likely than their parents and grandparents to deem patriotism, religion/belief in God, and having children as “very important.” Americans of all ages are closely aligned on the value of hard work and financial security.

Just 30% of the younger group deem religion as “very important,” while 67% of the older group does. About a third of those under 38 see having children as very important, while 54% of the older group does.

Patriotism has slipped as an important issue overall, to 61% now from 70% two decades ago, outside the poll’s margin of error. The split on that measure between younger and older respondents was 42% to 79%. -- Ros Krasny

COMING UP

The first, great culling. This week is crunch time for Democratic hopefuls hoping to qualify for the next round of candidates debates, in Houston in September. Aug. 28 is the deadline to meet the debate criteria of having 130,000 donors and polling at least 2% in four qualifying polls. About half of the current field is yet to qualify, even accounting for the three recent dropouts: John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee and Seth Moulton. If one more candidate hits the threshold, the event will be held over two nights, with slots randomly assigned. Billionaire investor Tom Steyer looks to have the best chance to get in.

Climate change takes center stage on Sept. 4, even if the Democratic National Committee rejected pleas from climate activists for a party-sponsored debate solely on that subject. CNN hosts a town hall on the issue the week after Labor Day weekend.

--With assistance from Ros Krasny, Emma Kinery, Alyza Sebenius and Ryan Teague Beckwith.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John Harney

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