A new poll from shows Linda McMahon up by a 49-46 margin against U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy in the race for the U.S. Senate.
"The poll is good news for Linda McMahon. In our first likely voter poll in Connecticut, McMahon has a 3 point advantage in a too-close-to-call-race. Her edge is due to her double- digit lead among independent voters and being close among women, a group she struggled with in her 2010 run," said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, PhD.
Independent voters surveyed favored McMahon by a 55-40 margin. Murphy leads 50-46 with women.
"McMahon has worked on her image in the last two years, and it shows. Voters like her more now than they did when she faced Richard Blumenthal in 2010," Schwartz said.
showed a similar margin with McMahon in the lead.
The Murphy campaign fired off a statement criticizing McMahon when the poll results were released.
“This was always going to be a tough race, and we don’t take anything for granted and neither should McMahon,” said Taylor Lavender, campaign spokesperson. She's spent her whole career getting rich at the expense of her own employees and at the expense of Connecticut jobs. Now she's dumped over $65 million into a marketing campaign to try to fool voters into thinking she’s something she’s not.”
Presidential Race
The poll showed President Barack Obama with a 52-45 lead over Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee. Twelve percent of voters said they might change their mind on who to vote for.
Obama has a higher favorability rating at 51-46, while only 41 percent of voters look at Romney favorably and 44 percent do not.
"Although President Barack Obama is ahead of Gov. Mitt Romney, his 7-point lead is a far cry from his 23-point victory in 2008 over John McCain,” Schwartz said. ”We shouldn't, however, expect to see the candidates campaigning in Connecticut, which hasn't voted for a Republican since 1988.”
From August 22-26, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,472 likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points. Interviewers called landlines and cell phones.
