Former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, who has spent millions on TV and radio ads and glossy mailers, now leads the GOP field in the U.S. Senate race, a new Quinnipiac University poll found.
But that won’t help her in the general election: McMahon trails Democratic frontrunner Richard Blumenthal by more than 30 percentage points, according to the poll that was released this morning.
McMahon’s surge among Republicans — she leads former Congressman Rob Simmons by 10 points — is attributable to one factor, Q poll Director Doug Schwartz said in a press release accompanying the poll results.
“Money. She’s the only Senate candidate on TV right now,” Schwartz said. “She quickly has become as well-known and well-liked among Republicans as the former frontrunner for the Republican nomination….Simmons.”
McMahon is largely self-funding her campaign. She has said she will spend up to $50 million of the vast fortune she and her husband Vince McMahon earned through their wrestling empire.
And that, said the Simmons campaign, is the reason for her surging poll numbers. “It should be no surprise to anyone that after six months and millions and millions of dollars in uncontested spending, including on misleading negative attack mail against Rob Simmons that Factcheck.org deemed riddled with falsehoods, that Linda McMahon would be able to buy an improvement in her polling,” Simmons campaign manager Jim Barnett said in a statement.
Despite McMahon’s strong showing in the current poll, the majority of Connecticut voters
prefer candidates who fuel their campaigns with donations, not their own personal wealth, the poll found.
McMahon’s experience running WWE, a central point in her campaign and a key source of criticism from the Simmons camp, is a factor. Fully one-third of voters said it would make them “less likely” to vote for her.
“[W]e learn each day how McMahon’s candidacy is fatally flawed – whether it is marketing steroid-fueled violence and degradation against women, minorities and the mentally handicapped to young children, or being investigated by Congress – it is clear that once McMahon’s troubling record is thoroughly aired, voters will find it disqualifying,” Barnett said.
But among Republicans it’s less of an issue: 23 percent said it would make them “less likely” to support her, while 26 percent said it would make them “more likely” to back her.
The new poll marks a sharp reversal of fortune for Simmons. He was the first GOP candidate to enter the race and has been the frontrunner since last year. He even led incumbent Chris Dodd, before Dodd announced in January that he is not seeking reelection.
The new poll shows a gender gap among GOP voters: Simmons would win 38 percent of the men’s vote, but only 28 percent of the women’s. Fifty percent of Republican women back McMahon, who would be the first woman senator in the state’s history.
Weston broker and author Peter Schiff also picked up some support: He now has 12 percent of the GOP vote, compared with 4 percent in January.
On the Democratic side, Blumenthal continues to show enormous popularity. He gets 79 percent approval rating, according to the latest poll and tops Mystic businessman Merrick Alpert, 81 percent to 6 percent among Democrats.
The poll of 1,451 Connecticut registered voters was conducted from March 9-15, after the Senate candidates had held their first debates. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.