Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Q-Poll: Rell, Lieberman Still Strong

Challengers Remain Unknown

A new Quinnipiac University poll released today shows both Gov. Rell and Sen. Joe Lieberman with commanding leads over their mostly unknown rivals. In fact, nothing much has significantly changed since the last poll in February.

Senate Race

Joe Lieberman's favorability ratings may be the thing that the Lamont campaign and its supporters grab on to: it's really the only positive thing for them from this poll. When asked their opinion of Lieberman, 48% had a favorable opinion, down from 53% in February. His unfavorables are still pretty low, though, at 19%.

The poll found that Lamont, Streitz and Schlesinger were all pretty unknown, and that Lieberman, probably just on the basis of name recognition, would defeat them all by a large margin. In the Democratic primary matchup, Lieberman leads Lamont 65-19.

Lamont voters were asked whether their vote was more for Lamont, or against Lieberman. 77% said against Lieberman.

It's not all bad news for the Lamont campaign. Their candidate is still largely unknown, and a strong showing at the convention would help his name recognition immensely. Still, this poll, which doesn't show much movement at all in the Senate race from February and strong support among Democrats for an independent Lieberman bid (58%), may end up hurting Lamont in his quest for delegates.

Governor's Race

Jodi Rell has remained well-liked by Connecticut's registered voters: 77% approve of her, while only 11% disapprove. Her numbers are down a little since February, but not so much that she should start to worry.

Rell leads both of her Democratic opponents by extremely wide margins, who are still unknown out of their respective regions of the state.

Malloy is catching up to DeStefano in the race for the Democratic nomination: DeStefano's lead has been cut from 38-19 in February to 32-24. This and the results of an informal poll on this site suggest that the race will be close.

Conclusions

Name recognition continues to be a problem for challengers, but the spotlight of the convention and upcoming Democratic primaries should help to alleviate that problem somewhat.

Still, it seems that Connecticut voters aren't yet ready to get rid of either Rell or Lieberman. If this trend holds, November will be a cementing of the status quo.

Source

Poll. Quinnipiac Poll--Connecticut. Conducted by Quinnipiac University April 25-30, 2006.

5 comments:

ctkeith said...

I'll stick with rasmussan on the Senate race.The guy in charge of the Q already said Liebeman has nothing to worry about and now has to prove himself correct.

I hope Liebermans campaign will give GC a copy of the mailer they sent Delegates.It's simply halarious in that it mentions how Lieberman fights against Bush" ,resisted every step Bush has Taken',"Slammed Bush","Condemned Bush"Twice,"Denounced Bush" and "Opposed Bush" but not a word about KISSING BUSH both literally and figuratively.

Genghis Conn said...

One thing we don't know about the Rasmussen poll was whether it was among registered voters or likely primary voters. Could make a difference.

ctkeith said...

GC,

Heres the rasmussan #s and tes it was Likely voters which makes it more worthyof consideration.

Rasmussen Reports. 4/27. Likely voters. 4.5 percent
margin of error. No trendlines.

Democratic Primary:

Lieberman (D) 51
Lamont (D) 31

Three-way race:

Lieberman 47
Lamont 20
Streitz 17

Chris Bowers posted these at MyDD.

Genghis Conn said...

Excellent, Keith, thanks! I'm more inclined to trust the Rasmussen numbers, then, too.

Genghis Conn said...

Click on "Help" in the menu at the top. There's a quick tutorial on how to do that there.