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Poll: Booker Has Name Recognition On His Side In N.J. Senate Primary

TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Democrat Cory Booker has the strongest name recognition among the six candidates running in the special New Jersey Senate primary.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday shows 56 percent of New Jersey voters surveyed have a favorable opinion of the 44-year-old Newark mayor. Twenty-seven percent say they don't know enough about Booker to form an opinion.

"[The] poll makes it look like a runway...for Cory Booker in the race to succeed Frank Lautenberg," said Maurice Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Among the other Democrats, 71 percent say they don't know enough about Assembly Speaker Shelia Oliver. Sixty-eight percent didn't know enough about Rep. Rush Holt and 63 percent said the same about Rep. Frank Pallone.

Fifty-four percent of the voters questioned don't know enough about Republican Steve Lonegan compared to 91 percent for his opponent, Alieta Eck.

The survey of 1,068 New Jersey voters has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Booker announced his intention to run for the seat of the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg at a press conference last month. He said he hoped to bring a fresh, pragmatic voice to Washington, where "too many have come to believe nothing can get done."

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