So much for the earth-shattering revelations about Connecticut Democratic senate nominee Richard Blumenthal’s less-than-entirely-honest recollections of his Vietnam-era military service as a reservist Marine. According to his campaign, just about everyone in Connecticut has heard the story by now — and few of them care.
Blumenthal pollster Al Quinlan presented internal polling to reporters this afternoon that he said showed Blumenthal has weathered the storm kicked up by last week’s front page New York TImes story cataloging his history of “misstatements” about serving in Vietnam. The numbers he presented showed nearly everyone in Connecticut has heard of the scandal, but most of them still like Blumenthal a lot.
The poll was taken in the 2 days following the Times story, May 19-20. The results showed fully 91% of Connecticut voters knew about the scandal. Quinlan said the respondents for the poll covered a “likely turnout” for November, but declined to offer specifics on what the demographic breakdowns were. Connecticut is a solidly blue state most of the time.
The internal poll shows Blumenthal leading former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon (R) 55-40. That number contrasts with the only public poll taken of the race since the Times story broke. An overnight poll taken by Rasmussen on May 18 showed McMahon in the lead 48-45.
Quinlan dismissed the Rasmussen poll, pointing to widely-perceived Republican bias by the firm among Democratic circles.
The TPM Poll Average for the McMahon-Blumenthal matchup (which includes both the Rasmussen poll and today’s internal numbers) shows Blumenthal ahead by a margin of 51.2-41.9.
The Blumenthal campaign did not poll Blumenthal against McMahon’s rival for the Republican nomination, former Rep. Rob Simmons. A campaign official on the call dismissed Simmons, claiming that he had failed to make an impact in the race and that McMahon’s sizable personal spending on the race has made her the main threat to Blumenthal in the fall. McMahon just won the state party’s endorsement to become the GOP’s nominee, but Quinlan said that the Blumenthal numbers show that McMahon is not the rising star some Republicans might hope.
Quinlan said she’s “not as popular as I think some people might think.”
The same cannot be said for Blumenthal — according to his own pollster anyway. Among the respondents to the Blumenthal campaign, 55% said they had favorable view of Blumenthal personally, while just 28% said their view was unfavorable. Those numbers hold among unaffiliated voters, according to Qunilan — 57% of that said they had a positive view of Blumenthal last Wednesday and Thursday.
“What struck me as fairly remarkable is Dick Blumenthal has remained tremendously strong through this,” Quinlan said.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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