With previous polls showing as much as a double digit lead for Lieberman, this poll comes as a pleasant surprise.
Couple this news with Lieberman's last place ballot line and the republican's first place line, Lamont is decidedly growing his base of support broadly from his voters that carried him to victory in August.
From yahoo news and Rasmussen reports:
In one of the country's most closely watched races, incumbent Senator Joseph Lieberman (I) continues to sustain a bare lead, now 45% to 43%, over Democrat Ned Lamont.
Lieberman is running as an Independent against the wishes of the Democratic establishment.
This race, while fascinating for political junkies, has no impact on the Senate Balance of Power summary. In terms of organizing the Senate, both Lieberman and Lamont will act as a Democrat next January.
really?? Lieberman will act as a Democrat, you could have fooled me.
The latest Connecticut poll result is unchanged from our previous poll. Immediately after the Democratic primary, Lieberman had a five-point edge of 46% to 41%.
Meanwhile, Republican nominee Alan Schlesinger's narrow slice of the electorate has dropped by a percentage point since our last poll. The same number of all voters, 5%, currently support Schlesinger as are undecided. Only 11% of Republicans say they'll support him.
Most GOP voters, 62%, prefer Lieberman, who also attracts 27% of Democrats. Lamont attracts support from 69% of Democrats.
Lieberman has the edge among unaffiliated voters 47% to 34%.
Curious to know how solid or soft Lieberman's GOP support really is, I can't imagine Schlesinger not at least getting the GOP dead vote 20-25% but clearly anything above 10% is likely lethal to Lieberman.
Iraq(not the mission accomplished victory it was sold as) and the economy(not as good as the media bashes into our skull daily) are essentially tied as the top issue of CT voters.
The economy is the top issue for a plurality of 25% of likely voters; in August 37% ranked it number one. Twenty-four percent (24%) say Iraq is their top issue, 21% say national security. The proportion who say Iraq is their top issue is highest among liberals (40%) and Democrats (33%).
Iraq alone probably won't have as much impact on the general election as it did on the contentious Democratic primary. But Connecticut voters also tend to trust Democrats more than Republicans when it comes to the economy, immigration, and taxes.
Only on national security do voters divide their trust somewhat evenly between the parties, with 43% trusting the GOP more, 44% trusting the Democrats more.
This telephone survey of 550 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports September 13-14, 2006. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Donor and volunteer defections are starting to have a corrosive effect to Lieberman's campaign. Lamont has gone on the offensive highlighting Lieberman's votes or lack there of. It's also bat in the face clear that Lieberman needing a few days to articulate his Iraq position probably cost him the election.