The polls open in less than 24-hours and Quinnipiac University released its latest poll on the Democratic primary Monday. The primary includes the hotly contested U.S. Senate race between incumbent U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman and challenger Ned Lamont and the gubernatorial contest between Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy and New Haven Mayor John DeStefano. Lt. Gov. Kevin Sullivan said Saturday that he thought it was in bad taste to release a poll one day before the primary, but Doug Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac Polling Institute said its common practice to keep polling when it’s a contested race.
“We want to track to see if there’s any changes,” Schwartz said Monday. He said they did it in 2001 in the contest between New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic Public Advocate Mark Green. He said Bloomberg trailed in the polls until the Monday before the election, which put the two in a dead heat. The new poll shows that Lieberman, who was behind 13 percentage points in the last poll, narrowed the margin. Lamont is still ahead of Lieberman 51 to 45, but Lieberman gained at least four percentage points and Lamont lost three when compared to the Aug. 3 poll.Schwartz said this shows that Lamont may have the numbers, but Lieberman “has the momentum” going into Tuesday’s showdown. Where did Lieberman gain, amongst likely female voters. As for the gubernatorial contest, Malloy seems to have picked up some steam, not unlike at the Democratic State Convention where he paraded around the delegates and claimed victory as delegates began changing their votes. Schwartz said DeStefano is ahead, but Malloy has the momentum. DeStefano leads Malloy 48 to 41 percent, but 10 percent of likely primary voters still remain undecided and 28 percent who have chosen a candidate “say they still might change their mind,” Schwartz said Monday. The margin of error in the survey of 784 likely Democratic primary voters is 3.5 percent.
