A Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press poll found that only 9 percent of voters say they would be very likely to vote for Rivera and just 17 percent say they would be somewhat likely to should he choose to run.

Conversely, a majority 65 percent of voters say they would not be likely to support Rivera,  including 51 percent who say they would not vote for him at all.

The Fox News personality made waves after announcing on his radio show that he was seriously considering a Senate run.

RELATED: Geraldo Rivera says he may run for U.S. Senate in New Jersey

“Fasten your seat belt,” he told his audience. “I am and have been in touch with some people in the Republican Party in New Jersey. I am truly contemplating running for Senate against Frank Lautenberg or Cory Booker in New Jersey.”

“I figure, at my age, if I’m going to do it, I’ve got to do it,” Rivera added.

In politics time moves quickly and on Thursday longtime incumbent Senator Lautenberg, 89, announced that he intends to retire.

“I will be traveling to my hometown of Paterson tomorrow to announce that I will not seek re-election in 2014,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “This is not the end of anything, but rather the beginning of a two-year mission to pass new gun safety laws, protect children from toxic chemicals, and create more opportunities for working families in New Jersey.”

But if the poll is any indication, Lautenberg’s departure will only help Newark Mayor Booker, and not Rivera, who lacks popularity even among Republican voters in New Jersey.

RELATED: Firestorm as Geraldo Rivera says Trayvon Martin’s hoodie responsible for his death

Even among GOP voters, just 44 percent say they would be at least somewhat likely to vote for Rivera while 48 percent would be unlikely.

About half of New Jersey voters have formed an opinion of Rivera, and it is evenly divided – 26 percent have a favorable view of him and 27 percent have an unfavorable view. The remaining 47 percent have no opinion.

Booker or anyone else who takes on the opinionated Rivera would have plenty of previous soundbites to use against him. After the shooting death of Trayvon Martin he said the hoodie the teen was wearing caused him to be shot by George Zimmerman. In August of last year he took to Fox and Friends to wonder aloud whether a lesbian cabal was running the Department of Homeland Security.

In his radio show announcement he said he would add nationalizing the controversial “Stop and Frisk” policy used by New York City police to his platform, should he run.

“The way you beat the whole racial profiling problem, you make it specific precinct statistics,” he said. “You can even make it block by block statistics if you want. You can have some objective criteria to beat the racial profiling constitutional problem and I’m telling you Chicago and Philly and the other cities can do what New York did dramatically cutting homicides.”

RELATED: Geraldo Rivera wonders if lesbian cabal is in charge of the Department of Homeland Security

“Fasten your seat belt,” he told his audience. “I am and have been in touch with some people in the Republican Party in New Jersey. I am truly contemplating running for Senate against Frank Lautenberg or Cory Booker in New Jersey.”

“I figure, at my age, if I’m going to do it, I’ve got to do it,” Rivera added.

RELATED: Firestorm as Geraldo Rivera says Trayvon Martin’s hoodie responsible for his death

Rivera also announced that he would seek to add nationalizing New York City’s controversial “stop and frisk” police practice to his platform should he run.

“The way you beat the whole racial profiling problem, you make it specific precinct statistics,” he said. “You can even make it block by block statistics if you want. You can have some objective criteria to beat the racial profiling constitutional problem and I’m telling you Chicago and Philly and the other cities can do what New York did dramatically cutting homicides.”

Rivera was talking to his audience and Fox News contributor Judge Andrew Napolitano, who praised Rivera, and said he would do everything in his power to help him win the seat because Geraldo is “a rare understander of the nature of human freedom and the role of government in our lives,” he said, adding, “I welcome this as a great gift at this stage in my life.”

Rivera’s eventual opponent would have plenty of sound bites to use against Rivera, who has come under fire for controversial comments. After the shooting death of Trayvon Martin he said the hoodie the teen was wearing caused him to be shot by George Zimmerman.

“I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters, particularly, to not let their children go out wearing hoodies,” Rivera said. “I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.”

His hoodie killed Trayvon Martin as surely as George Zimmerman.—
Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) March 23, 2012

Whatever New Jersey voters think of the possibility of “Senator Geraldo Rivera,” they will find out soon if it will be a possibility. Rivera says he has no interest in drawing it out and will make his decision soon.

RELATED: Geraldo Rivera wonders if “lesbian cabal” is running the Department of Homeland Security

UH OH! Benediction included spanish. A million xenophobic heads just exploded into irrational fear. #inauguration

— Upworthy (@Upworthy) January 21, 2013

I was ready for the backlash to begin.

America is decaying!

Patriots, let us storm the White House, our language is being threatened!

Spanish is an affront to our English-only nation!

However, something rather interesting happened in response to the Spanish spoken by Cuban-Americans Richard Blanco and the Rev. Luis León: NOTHING.

I was 100% sure that FOX News would have been ready to pounce on this linguistic insult to the country. NADA. Even the other usual suspects were low-key. Breitbart ran a tame wire story about “Obama’s Hispanic Accent,” while the ever-annoying Twitchy couldn’t even run a story about what Twitter was saying about the Spanish because Twitter was silent. Even the US English page issued no statement condemning the act.

¿Entonces qué pasó? So what happened? I was so ready to mix it up with those who claim that our monolingualism represents true Americanism and national pride. I was ready to go battle those who would claim that King Obama was now forcing us to speaking in two languages.

The lack of digital outrage is quite telling. Are things indeed changing? Maybe we as a country are turning a corner and realizing that we should be celebrating the fact that the United States has over 35 million Spanish speakers, with predictions that we will be the world’s biggest Spanish-speaking nation by 2050.

Or, and I suspect that this is more the case, maybe those who were quick to push for a monolingual society and the nativist subtext such a position espouses are finally reading the tea leaves (yes that pun was intended, Tea Party). The conventional wisdom is clear: our country is more diverse, both linguistically and culturally.

While Democrats continue to push the optics of a diverse society, Republicans are still having optics issues. It’s no wonder that in December former House Speaker and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich wrote in a letter to fellow Republicans that the party would face a “bleak future” if the party did not begin go through a profound change. As Gingrich said, “There is a combination of demographic trends, cultural changes, technological breakthroughs and intelligent, disciplined application of resources which could turn America into a national version of Chicago or California.”

Nonetheless, optics are just one part of the message. The symbolism of seeing Spanish spoken at an inauguration without question made many U.S. Latinos proud. There was a sense that many are now at the political table, and seeing Justice Sonia Sotomayor swear in Vice President Biden only enhanced that narrative.

Yet the pomp and ceremony ended yesterday. Today the real legislative work begins. Will the Obama administration follow through on issues that U.S. Latino voters have deemed important, such as comprehensive immigration reform? Will we see prominent Latinos filling vacant Cabinet positions? Will the Republicans truly embrace Gingrich’s advice to transform themselves? Or will they be forever stuck in 2010?

All the Spanish in the world won’t diffuse the fact that both Democrats and Republicans have not fully fulfilled the expectations of U.S. Latino voters. The image of Obama as the country’s Deporter-in-Chief is still real in the eyes of many, and Republicans’ cluelessness about the Latino vote has become a running joke. This all needs to change.

So, gracias for the Spanish, Washington. I will leave you with this one final thought: Somos lo que hacemos, no lo que pensamos ni lo que sentimos. We are defined by what we do, not by what we think or what we feel.

Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77 ) founded LatinoRebels.com in May, 2011 and proceeded to open it up to about 20 like-minded Rebeldes. His personal blog, juliorvarela.com, has been active since 2008 and is widely read in Puerto Rico and beyond.  In the past 12 months, Julito represented the Rebeldes on Face the Nation, NPR, Univision, Forbes, and The New York Times.

He was referring to a new University of California at Berkeley scholarship created to assist undocumented students with college tuition costs. The fund was created to aid these students because they are not eligible for federal Pell grants, federally backed loans or work-study positions.

Students do not submit a night vision video to apply, said UC Berkeley officials. “They apply for aid in general by reporting their financial information to the university,” said José Rodríguez,  a campus spokesperson. “The Haas, Jr. Fund Dreamers Scholarship is one of the sources of student aid that the campus will now count on starting in fall of 2013.”

Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.

Kilmeade, co-host of the morning show Fox and Friends, described the scholarship this way:

“They’re in the country illegally but they could soon get a scholarship to go to college. The University of California at Berkeley offering nearly 200 scholarships to those not eligible for federal grants or government-backed loans. All they have to do is bring footage of them in green video –night-vision video –and they’ll get in free. The school says it’s trying to spread the program across the country.”

Kilmeade ended the segment saying “Sorry citizens, you’re out of luck.”

This is not the first time Kilmeade has made offensive remarks. Last month, he awkwardly joked on his radio show that his own network hired its female anchors from a lingerie catalog. This summer his co-cost Gretchen Carlson walked off the “Fox and Friends” set  after he said about women ”we’re letting them play golf and tennis now, it’s out of control.”

During a segment of “Fox and Friends,” Rivera waded into the issue of a top aide to Secretary Janet Napolitano taking leave amid charges of sexual harassment and anti-male discrimination.

“I have a question, is this subtext of the Department of Homeland Security scandal — that there is some kind of lesbian cabal, that it’s a same-sex takeover of the big agencies?” Geraldo offered, as the hosts looked at each other and laughed nervously.

“What do you think?” the hosts asked him.

“I don’t know, it seems like everyone is talking around it,” Geraldo said, as he picked up steam. “Is that really what people are saying? That men are disadvantaged because women and specifically lesbians are ruling the roost there?”

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“I don’t know about that last part,” said lone female host, Gretchen Carlson.

“I mean it just seems like everyone is dancing around and kind of making these inferences,” Geraldo added.

At that point, Rivera found an ally in co-host Brian Kilmeade.

“We don’t know for sure, but it’s easy to come to that conclusion that there’s some different type of glass ceiling separating the Homeland Security Department in this case,” he said.

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Interestingly, Rivera began the top of the segment by remarking that he hadn’t been with the “Fox and Friends” crew all summer. Geraldo previously struck the match that ignited a firestorm after controversial comments about the Trayvon Martin tragic shooting.

“I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters, particularly, to not let their children go out wearing hoodies,” Rivera said. “I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.”

His hoodie killed Trayvon Martin as surely as George Zimmerman.

— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) March 23, 2012

Rivera concluded that series of comments by saying, “Unless it’s raining out or you’re at a track meet – leave the hoodie at home.”

Of course, according to Zimmerman’s 911 call, it was raining when Trayvon Martin was shot and killed.

Geraldo Rivera “lesbian cabal” clip: