Let’s get ready to….fumble? Should Linda McMahon try again for the Republican nomination for US Senate in Connecticut, a new Quinnipiac poll shows that she’d be the favorite over moderate former Congressman Chris Shays. But it also shows she’s likely to see the same fate as she did even during the 2010 GOP wave: a loss to Democrats.
McMahon reaches a majority 50 percent in the GOP primary, to Shays’ 35 percent, but suffers from a gap in favorability. It also seems that McMahon is not the GOP’s best option to take the seat in a very blue state. McMahon has a negative rating, seen as favorable by 38 percent versus 45 unfavorable, but Shays is popular: he is seen as favorable by 41 percent against only 14 percent unfavorable.
The Democrats in the race Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and former Conn. Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, both have a positive favorability ratings, and Murphy leads in the Democratic primary 36 – 26 at the moment, with a large chunk of Dem voters undecided. But the Quinnipiac poll shows they are both in a position to beat McMahon. In both trial heats against the top Dem challengers, McMahon only gets 38 percent of the vote, even though she ran for Senate in the last cycle. Murphy gets 49 percent in a matchup against McMahon and Bysiewicz garners 46.
McMahon suffers from a loss of support from her own base. GOP voters are a clear minority in Connecticut, but she only sees support from three quarters of them in the poll, splitting the independent vote and only around ten percent of Democrats. On the other hand, Shays shows some real strength in general election matchups: he actuals bests Bysiewicz 42 – 40, and falls to Murphy 43 – 37. Against Bysiewicz, Shays pulls 47 percent of independent voters versus 30 for the former Secretary of State and essentially splits them against Murphy.
At the moment, a retread candidacy seems like it will lead to an electoral smackdown.
The Quinnipiac poll used 1,230 live telephone interviews with registered Connecticut voters conducted from Sept. 8th to the 13th, with a sampling error of 2.8 percent. The GOP primary numbers include 332 Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 5.4 percentage points and the Dem sample includes 447 voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points.
