Poll: Murphy, McMahon in ‘dead heat’

U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy’s 2007 foreclosure action appears to have had little impact on voters, after a debut poll from the University of Connecticut and the Hartford Courant showed the Democrat with a four-point lead over his Republican counterpart Linda McMahon for the U.S. Senate.

Murphy was the choice of 37 percent of those polled, with McMahon getting 33 percent. UConn termed it “a dead heat,” particularly in western Connecticut, with the poll carrying a 4 percent margin of error. UConn polled more than 500 likely voters between Sept. 11 and Sept. 16.

Nearly half of independent voters polled said they remain undecided.

In a Quinnipiac University poll published in late August, it was McMahon who held a slight edge over Murphy.

McMahon has been critical of Murphy following a Hartford Courant report that he faced a foreclosure action in 2007 months after winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007, and she has questioned whether Murphy received preferential treatment from Waterbury-based Webster Financial Corp. in obtaining a loan. Webster Bank has stated Murphy received loan terms that would be standard for someone of his financial status at the time.

On the campaign trail, McMahon has often referenced her own 1976 declaration of bankruptcy alongside husband Vince McMahon, before building Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. into a major corporation. On Wednesday, the New London Day published a schedule of some $1 million in debt the McMahons owed at the time of their bankruptcy and after foreclosure proceedings were initiated on their West Hartford home, including $360,000 to a Waterbury bank and $100,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.

“Right now, this is anyone’s race,” said UConn polling director Jennifer Dineen, in a written statement. “Both candidates need to focus on that large number of undecided voters if they want to open up a lead going into the home stretch.”