This time around, Quinnipiac”™s pollsters are picking Dan Malloy ”“ in the early going, anyway.
After proving the polls wrong in winning the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Malloy held a 9 percent lead over Republican rival Tom Foley in a poll published by Quinnipiac University.
Malloy held a 50-41 percent advantage in the poll, but 26 percent of those who disclosed their early choice said they could yet change their mind, and another 8 percent of voters are undecided.
“A lot of voters don”™t start paying attention until about three or four weeks out (from election day),” Foley said during a campaign stop. “When the voters understand where I stand on the issues, and where Dan Malloy stands on the issues, they”™re going to support me.”
A separate Quinnipiac poll showed that Linda McMahon has closed the gap in her U.S. Senate race with Richard Blumenthal to a six-point margin, with the Democrat Blumenthal leading 51-45 percent after originally entering the race as the overwhelming favorite. Another 3 percent of likely voters polled by Quinnipiac said they are undecided, while 11 percent stated they could change their mind.
“For Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, an elected official with a 70 percent approval rating, this race is surprisingly close,” Douglas Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a prepared statement. “It is not that voters are wild about McMahon; her favorability rating is tepid, and many of her supporters are more anti-Blumenthal. The question is whether Linda McMahon can ride the anti-establishment, anti-Democratic wave to victory in blue Connecticut, a state that hasn”™t voted for a Republican for senator since Lowell Weicker in 1982.”
