Lamont Holds Huge Lead In CT Governor Race: Quinnipiac Poll

HAMDEN, CT — Gov. Ned Lamont leads Republican challenger Bob Stefanowski 57-40 percent in the latest Quinnipiac University Poll.

"Seventeen points is by any measure a huge lead,” Poll Director Doug Schwartz said in a statement. “Barring a calamity, it certainly looks like a cruise control ride up I-91 and back to the statehouse in Hartford for Governor Lamont.”

The institute polled 1,911 likely Connecticut voters via live telephone interviews between Sept. 15-19, with a margin of error of +/- 2.2 percentage points.

Lamont also led Stefanowski by a sizable margin in a recent Emerson College poll.

Lamont has a 58-36 approval/disapproval rate. Likely voters gave him a positive 54-36 favorability rating.

Stefanowski had a negative 33-39 percent favorability rating, with more than a quarter of likely voters saying they haven’t heard enough about him.

Women support Lamont 63-35 percent, while men are divided 50-47 percent.

Lamont will head into November with three lines on the ballot. He won endorsements from the Democratic, Working Families and the Griebel-Frank for CT parties. The Griebel-Frank party endorsement came after Lamont pledged to support ranked choice voting in next year’s legislative session.

Stefanowski lost the Independent Party caucus vote, and a subsequent legal challenge.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal also leads Republican challenger Leora Levy 57-40 percent.

Trump/Biden factor

Levy, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, said he wasn’t on the Connecticut ballot, but the Quinnipiac poll found he is a factor in the race; 29 percent of likely voters said that their opposition of Trump is one reason for their vote for U.S. senator.

Trump has a 27-65 percent favorability rating among likely Connecticut voters, according to the poll, and only 10 percent of likely voters said one reason for the U.S. senator vote would be to express support for the former president. Trump wasn’t a factor in the Senate race for 59 percent of likely voters.

Biden is less of a factor in the Senate race; 19 percent of likely voters said they would vote in the Senate race to support Biden, while 23 percent said they would vote to oppose him. Another 57 percent said Biden wasn’t a factor.

Biggest issues

The two biggest issues on likely voters’ minds are inflation at 32 percent and taxes at 20 percent. No other issue reached double digits in the poll results.

There were splits among party lines. Inflation was the biggest issue for Republicans at 48 percent, followed by taxes at 31 percent. Inflation was also the top issue for Democratic voters at 20 percent, but climate change came in second at 14 percent, abortion at 12 percent and health care at 10 percent.

Unaffiliated voters also pegged inflation as their biggest concern at 33 percent, while taxes were second at 26 percent.