Connecticut residents are evenly split on whether a Republican or Democrat should replace outgoing Governor Dan Malloy when he completes his term at the end of 2018. In a poll released today by the public affairs firm Tremont Public Advisors, Connecticut residents were divided on whether they would elect a Democrat (52.1%) or a Republican (47.9%) in November of 2018.
The survey of 1,154 Connecticut residents over the age of 18 also showed that, of the candidates for Governor tested, there was no candidate from either party dominating the crowded field of approximately 20 potential candidates.
“There is good and bad news for both Republicans and Democrats in the survey results released today.”, stated Matthew J. Hennessy, Managing Director of Tremont Public Advisors. “For Republicans to be neck and neck with Democrats in a state Hillary Clinton won by over 13 points has to heartening. However, it also shows that after months of attempting to tie the state’s fiscal woes and voter dissatisfaction of Governor Malloy to the next Democratic candidate for Governor, they just haven’t made a convincing case.”
Hennessy also stated, “Democrats have to be happy their candidates aren’t being significantly blamed for Connecticut’s woes. But, it just shouldn’t be this close. At this point, Connecticut residents aren’t connecting local Republicans with a very unpopular President Donald Trump, which is good news for the Connecticut GOP.”
“Residents haven’t coalesced around a candidate for Governor from either party at this point in the race. Potential candidates waiting in the wings could still enter the race in January without fear that other candidates have already made insurmountable in-roads with the voters.”
Poll Methodology
This survey of 1,154 Connecticut residents over the age of 18 was conducted between 12/12/17 and 12/14/17 using an on-line survey platform. The survey has a MOE of +/- 3%. The poll population consisted of two panels of respondents: (1) internet users reading content on a network of web publisher sites, and (2) smartphone users who have downloaded and signed up to use an Android app. To correct for sampling bias after the survey is run, weighting was used to upweight under-represented groups and down-weight overrepresented groups using Census Data.