This morning’s Q poll shows just how hard it will be for Republicans to win a U.S. Senate seat
in Connecticut. Despite potentially damaging revelations that Democrat Richard Blumenthal misrepresented his military record — and despite an early and pervasive ad campaign launched by Republican Linda McMahon — state voters are sticking with Blumenthal.
The attorney general beats McMahon by 25 percentage points, according to the Quinnipiac University poll. That’s a drop from the 33 point lead that Blumenthal held over the former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO in the March Q poll, but still a significant lead.
Even more heartening for Blumenthal: Questions about his military record, first raised last week by a New York Times report, don’t appear to have hurt him. Sixty one percent of the voters say it doesn’t matter to them that Blumenthal misrepresented his service by saying on several occasions that he served in the Vietnam War when in fact he remained stateside.
“It looks like Connecticut voters forgive Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, or feel that there is nothing to forgive in the Vietnam service flap,” Q Poll director Doug Schwartz said in press release accompanying the poll’s release. “While he has taken a hit with voters, his poll numbers were so high to begin with that he still maintains a commanding lead over Linda McMahon.”
And there’s more good news for Blumenthal. He wins every “character” question the poll asked. He’s seen as having strong leadership qualities, being honest and having the necessary experience to be a U.S. Senator, topping McMahon’s ratings in each of those categories.
Seventy six percent approve of the way Blumenthal does his job as the state’s attorney general and 76 percent think he has “the right kind of experience” to be a U.S. Senator from Connecticut.
However, there was a glimmer of good news for the McMahon camp. Blumenthal is seen as less “honest and trustworthy” than he was in a January Q poll. Then, 81 percent of respondents viewed him as such; in the current poll, 60 percent said he was “honest and trustworthy.”
The Q poll shows a starkly different result than a Rasmussen poll released on May 19. That survey, taken the day the Times published its report in the newspaper, showed McMahon had essentially closed the gap with Blumenthal, coming within three percentage points of him.
McMahon has already spent at least $15 million on the race, and has run a series of television ads touting her business experience. But the poll found that 39 percent of voters have an unfavorable opinion of her. That’s an increase over the 26 percent unfavorable rating she received in the March poll.
The poll found that 61 percent of all voters view Blumenthal favorable — as do 41 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of military households.
The poll was conducted May 24 and 25, just days after McMahon’s stunning victory at the state GOP convention.
“What is surprising is that McMahon gets no bounce from her Republican convention victory,” Schwartz said. “Her negatives went up 13 points from 26 percent unfavorable to 39 percent unfavorable. The more voters get to know McMahon the less they like her.”
The poll surveyed 1,159 Connecticut registered voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.