Poll-y Joe

Firedoglake commenter Norm de Plume was kind enough to link to this Quinnipiac University poll from about a month ago, looking primarily (so to speak) at the upcoming CT primary and general elections. Some interesting tidbits, which I am probably the last person to notice:

o Joe leads Ned by 25% (57-32) among all CT Democrats, but only 15% (55-40) among likely voters, which suggests that his support is pretty lukewarm. Not only that, but that 25% gap was a 46% gap for Joe just one month before, so the trend is not exactly favorable.

o Head-to-head against Schlesinger, Joe wins 68-14, and Ned wins 37-20, with 34% undecided, which tells me that a lot of people don't even know who he is yet, or if he's for real. With Joe announcing he won't abide by the primary results, he just made sure that everyone in CT knows who Ned is, and that he's a credible enough challenger to have the incumbent running scared.

o Buttressing the previous point, when asked whether their impression of Lamont was favorable or unfavorable, 73% of CT Dems said they haven't heard enough about him, and only 11% had a favorable impression. And yet, 32% say they prefer him to Lieberman. Interesting.

o In a three-way race, with Joe running under the banner of the Gee-Your-War-Smells-Terrific Party, Joe wins 56-18-8, with the Republican getting the 8. Disheartening for Lamont fans, but I think recent events will have a big effect on those numbers. The 8% is not exactly good news for Schlesinger, and it's pretty hard to envision a scenario where he could possibly win with support that soft.

o Less than half (49%) of CT Dems approve of the job Joe is doing, yet 56% say he deserves to be re-elected. What the deuce?

o Joe's 56% overall approval rating is not bad, but it's gone down 11 points in about ten months, and 7 points in the last four.

o To go along with that 49% approval rating among CT Dems and 57% rating among Independents, Joe has a 66% approval rating among CT Republicans. Which should dispel any doubts about his true political orientation. Better yet, his approval rating is 5 points higher among CT Republicans than the President's! This speaks volumes about both Joe and Dubya, and confirms my belief that Joe is a Republican who pretends to be a Democrat so that he can get votes in a blue state.


I'm no statistician, but it looks to me like CT Democrats are desperate for an alternative to Joe, to the point where many of them would be willing to vote for someone they've barely even heard of just to get rid of him. It's the CT Republicans and Independents that Lamont has to worry about in November.

I am eagerly awaiting the next poll now that Joe has managed to simultaneously make a complete ass of himself and give Ned the gift of name recognition and credibility. I will probably want to revisit all of these numbers again.