The CT-based Quinnipiac poll, with its R-leaning likely voter model, has its second tight CT race in two days, and like the CT-Sen race yesterday, has a three point lead for the Democrat.
Fueled by a shift among independent Connecticut likely voters, Republican candidate for governor Tom Foley now has 42 percent to Democrat Dan Malloy's 45 percent, making the race too close to call, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
This compares to a 50 - 41 percent Malloy lead in a September 15 likely voter survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll, conducted by live interviewers.
Connecticut independents (42%) outnumber Democrats (37) and Republicans (20) via voter registration. And unlike the Senate race, with few undecideds and 9% who say they can change their minds, more people here have not settled on a candidate. That's of interest because in the survey Foley has not gone up, Malloy has gone down.
In today's survey, 12 percent of likely voters are undecided and 22 percent of voters who name a candidate say they could change their mind by Election Day. Malloy leads 86 - 8 percent among Democrats. Foley leads 82 - 9 percent among Republicans. Independent voters shift from a 42 - 44 percent split September 15 to 44 - 38 percent for Foley today. Women back the Democrat 52 - 34 percent while men back the Republican 49 - 38 percent.
You'll see that huge gender gap all over the country.
Another interesting question is the one about ads (also featured in the Senate race.)
The 79 percent of likely voters who have seen Foley's TV ads split 45 - 46 percent on whether they are informative or annoying.
Malloy does only slightly better as 80 percent of voters have seen his ads and 49 percent find them informative while 43 percent find them annoying.
Foley isn't spending as much as the Sen. R candidate, Linda McMahon, and the ads aren't really striking a chord.
What's the big issue? Not polled, but both in the Senate and the Governor's race, it's the economy and (I suspect) Chris Dodd's unpopularity in standing up for Wall Street and not Main Street. Independents have had little reason to move toward the Republicans since the last survey a few weeks ago, and the vote motivation for Malloy (are you voting for this guy or against the other guy? 73%) is higher than the vote for Foley (60%), just as we saw in the Senate race where the Democrat Richard Blumenthal gets 75% of his voters voting for him, McMahon gets 52% in what is clearly a protest vote. Yet those same indies are right now, according to Quinnipiac, breaking R.
Trends are your friend when it comes to polls, and there's no doubt the race is tightening. Whether CT is really this GOP friendly or whether it's a consequence of the Q-poll likely voter model remains to be seen. Yesterday, Rasmussen had Malloy by 10, with leaners breaking his way. Go figure.
Oh, and just to sweeten the pot, check out this Charlie Cook article on polling:
I should echo an argument made several weeks ago by my good friend and competitor Stu Rothenberg. He scoffed at those who mistakenly believed that polls conducted independently from the candidates and parties were inherently better or more reliable than campaign polling.
My view is that most academic polling, as well as the polling sponsored by local television stations and newspapers, is dime-store junk.
Meanwhile ,without this new poll, Nate Silver was figuring an 89% chance Malloy wins. Has everything/anything really changed?
In any case, there's a close election (this poll sez) and a chance to flip control. What more do you need to GOTV?