Storm King
Gov. Dannel Malloy
Photo by Steve Kotchko
Posted 9/19/11
The latest Quinnipiac University Poll came offers some insights on power, politics, and personality. Power—as in electric power—and how Tropical Storm Irene affected the popularity of Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy and the image of Connecticut’s two electric companies CL&P and UI. Politics—as in Malloy’s job approval rating, and data on how the 2012 U.S. Senate race is shaping up. Personality—as in how voters, especially women voters, feel about Linda McMahon, the once-and-future U.S. Senate hopeful and former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) executive.
Malloy, bewitched, bothered and bewildered all summer by the machinations of the state employee labor concessions deal that was finally approved, may have welcomed the opportunity to switch his focus to guiding Connecticut through Tropical Storm Irene. The Governor was out front early on the storm, urging the state to batten down the hatches, and he travelled the state and held numerous update news conferences in the aftermath.
That activist stance worked well for Malloy. In the Quinnipiac Poll, 79% of voters surveyed approved of the way the Governor handled the storm and its aftermath. While some other governors and mayors in storm-affected states saw an upward “bump” in their overall approval ratings post-Irene, that didn’t happen to Malloy.
The Q-Poll showed just 41% of voters approve of the way Malloy is handling his job. “Tropical Storm Irene put no wind in Malloy’s sails,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz. His problems are tied to the budget. 55% of those polled disapprove of Malloy’s budget strategies. 49% don’t like the way he dealt with the state employee unions. Perhaps most important—71% of voters are unhappy about the “way things are going in Connecticut today”, as the wording of one Q-Poll question put it.
“People feel so strongly about the economy, about the (Malloy) increase in taxes, that even a strong performance on Irene isn’t enough to overcome that,” Schwartz explained.
While it is not surprising that 68% of Republican voters surveyed turned thumbs down on Malloy’s job performance, along with 45% of independents, it should cause the Governor to be concerned that 35% of Democrats—members of his own party—are unhappy about how he’s handling the job.
Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy’s senior advisor, issued one of those “whistling past the graveyard” statements in reaction to the poll. “We have tried to be consistent in not saying much about polls because—what’s there to say?” he commented. “Polls come and go, numbers go up and down,” Occhiogrosso said. “The Governor always does what he thinks is best for the state.” One wonders what Malloy’s team would have said if the Q-Poll numbers shot up as they did for some other governors post-Irene.
Schwartz said Malloy has no reason to panic. He is not even one full year into his administration, so there’s plenty of time to improve his standing with voters, especially if the state’s economy and job growth begin to strengthen. Malloy doesn’t have to face reelection until 2014.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the Quinnipiac Poll is that Connecticut’s two electric companies, CL&P and UI, did very well with voters in terms of their performance during and after Tropical Storm Irene. The two utilities underwent intense questioning by reporters about preparedness for the big storm, the size of their in-state line crew contingent, and their communications with state and local officials.
Indeed, a full legislative investigation into the utilities performance begins this week at the State Capitol complex. Gov. Malloy last week named an administration task force to conduct a separate review of the utilities and make recommendations for possible reforms.
Yet in the Quinnipiac Poll, 61% of voters surveyed approved of the way utilities dealt with the storm. They said the amount of time it took line crews to restore power was “reasonable”, and 62% of the state rated Irene as an “inconvenience” rather than a serious problem. It should be noted that positive numbers for CL&P and UI diminished in proportion to the length of time it took repair crews to restore power to voters homes.
Personality, or at least image, is a nagging issue for Linda McMahon, the former wrestling exec who seems hell-bent to be a United States Senator. How else do you explain the fact that she spent $50 million on her 2010 campaign only to lose to Democrat Richard Blumenthal by 12 points, and this week she’s jumping into the 2012 Senate fray?
In the Quinnipiac Poll, McMahon has a 15 point lead over former Republican congressman Chris Shays in a possible matchup for the GOP Senate nomination. However, when McMahon is matched up against the two top Democratic Senate hopefuls Congressman Chris Murphy and former secretary of the state Susan Bysiewicz—McMahon loses. By contrast, Shays, who’s been out of elective politics for a few years, loses out to Murphy by just 6 points, and is nearly even with Bysiewicz.
Thanks to her recent statewide campaign and glut of TV advertising, McMahon is well-known to Connecticut voters, but that’s not necessarily a plus for her. “Not many voters have a good opinion of her,” said Schwartz. During the last Senate campaign in August 2010, 37% of voters in the Q-Poll had an “unfavorable” view of McMahon. Now that negative number is 45%.
McMahon’s biggest problem continues to be women voters. 45% of women in the new poll have a negative opinion of McMahon, 35% have a favorable view. “Women have an especially negative view of professional wrestling and (McMahon’s) background in wrestling makes them less likely to vote for her,” said Schwartz.
It must be presumed that the self-funded and well-funded McMahon has done her own internal polling on her images problems and may be mounting a strategy to make her more friendly to female voters, perhaps a new TV ad campaign on the topic.
However, flipping the wrestling problem on its back could be difficult. “People know her,” said Schwartz, “and it’s tougher to change (the feelings) of people who already know you and have formed an opinion.”
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