Governor’s Race Tightens

Former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy is closing the gap in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, but still trails Ned Lamont by five points, while Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele has cut Tom Foley’s lead from 35 points to 15 points.

Those are the latest numbers in the Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday morning.

In the Republican gubernatorial primary Foley leads Fedele 41 to 26 percent with R. Nelson “Oz” Griebel getting 13 percent of the vote. Foley led Fedele 48 to 13 percent in last month’s poll.

On the Republican side 21 percent of voters remain undecided and 62 percent of those who choose a candidate say they might change their mind in the next six days.

“Lt. Gov. Mike Fedele is coming on very strong in these final weeks, but it may not be enough to overcome Tom Foley’s huge early lead,” Douglas Schwartz, Quinnipiac University poll director, said. “Foley’s negatives have risen, probably due in part to Fedele’s TV ads.  There is still a lot of voter uncertainty in this race, but with less than a week to go, there isn’t much time left for Fedele.”

Malloy trails Lamont 45 to 40 percent amongst likely Democratic primary voters. Lamont led Malloy 46 to 37 percent in last month’s poll.

“Lamont still has the edge, but with 14 percent of voters undecided and 43 percent who still could change their mind, it is close enough that Malloy could pull it off,” Schwartz said.

Democratic voters said Lamont’s has a better personality and character to be governor, while they feel Malloy is better qualified. They also agree 39 to 33 percent with Lamont’s position on the economy over Malloy’s and they feel by a margin of 46 to 29 percent that Lamont has a better chance of winning in November.

Malloy thinks he has the momentum going into the primary, but Lamont’s spokeswoman Justine Session said if Malloy was going to catch Lamont this poll would have been the poll to reflect it.

“This poll was Dan’s best opportunity to catch Ned and he didn’t do it,” Sessions said at the Capitol Thursday. She said his negative ads saturated the air waves while Quinnipiac University was in the field for the poll. She said during that same time Lamont was airing an ad responding to Malloy’s ad with the facts.

Lamont has spent $8 million on the campaign “most of it on negative campaigning and he’s pointing fingers at me. Give me a break,” Malloy said at the Capitol Thursday. He said he believes he can close the 5 point gap before Tuesday.

The poll surveyed 1,003 likely Republican voters and 979 likely Democratic voters. It has a 3.1 percent margin of error.