An Internet-based poll by the New York Times, CBS News and a research firm called YouGov suggests that Republican Tom Foley has a 42 to 33 percent advantage over incumbent Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

The Connecticut results are a small part of a nationwide online polling project, the first wave of which was published Sunday in the New York Times. The results were based on Internet respondents rather than more traditional phone-based polling used by institutions like Quinnipiac University.

Foley, the Republican convention endorsed candidate, is competing in an Aug. 12 primary election with Senate Minority Leader John McKinney.

Foley lost to Malloy by only 6,404 votes in 2010 and Quinnipiac polls have suggested the public has remained evenly split on the two candidates. The New York Times / CBS poll suggests Foley may be gaining ground on Malloy.

The poll results see 42 percent of voters supporting Foley and 33 percent supporting Malloy. Meanwhile, an additional 8 percent “lean” toward voting for Malloy while 6 percent “lean” for Foley.

Foley has a strong lead among independent voters, according to the results, with 50 percent supporting the Republican and 15 percent supporting the Democrat.

In an article on the results, Nate Cohn, a writer for the New York Times Upshot project, said the poll offered “bleak news” for Malloy and Democratic governors in Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, Georgia, and Arkansas.

Quinnipiac has not released a poll on the race since May.

Asked about the online poll during an unrelated press conference, Malloy said he typically does not comment on surveys and “at best, I guess we should call this a survey.”

Meanwhile, Foley’s campaign pointed to the results in an email to supporters.

“Guess what?  Tom’s message is catching on— Big time,” the email read.

McKinney, who was not included in the poll, released a statement suggesting the poll was useful for nothing more than “gossip.”

“Leaving aside the fact that an online poll conducted by registration only on a national basis that admittedly doesn’t use probability sampling is hardly a basis for anything but gossip, the YouGov.com poll tells us nothing more than that neither Tom Foley nor Dan Malloy have convinced voters that they can bring real change to Hartford,” he said.