Tribal politics on full display in new Q-poll
L ast week’s Quinnipiac Poll well documented the tribal nature of today’s politics and the growing gender gap accompanying it.
There was a day when incumbent politicians running for national or statewide office could attract support across party lines. No more.
Take U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy. The Q-poll of likely voters showed his Republican challenger, Matthew Corey, leading among Republicans 96 percent to 4 percent. I suspect many of those Republicans know little or nothing about Corey. Thirty-four percent of Republicans admitted to pollsters that they don’t know enough about Corey to form a favorable or unfavorable opinion. No matter, he’s not that MSNBC appearing, relentless President Trump critic and gun-control advocate Murphy, so he must be a better choice, Republicans conclude.
Corey cannot take much solace from that polling, however, since Murphy leads the race overall by a formidable 57-42 margin. His tribe, the Democrats, back the freshman senator’s re-election by a 95-4 margin, 1 percent left somewhere on the statistical floor due to a rounding calculation.
Quinnipiac questioned a cross-section of 767 likely voters, producing a poll with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent, which means perhaps no Republicans support Murphy and no Democrats back Corey.
The tribeless unaffiliated break strongly for Murphy, 57-39.
Corey, 54, is making the case he will take the knowledge of the struggles of working people to Washington. He is a window washer and bar owner. The 45-year-old Murphy, Corey notes, is trained as a lawyer but his vocation is strictly politician, having held elected office since winning a state House seat at age 25.
“How could he possibly know the struggles the American people are facing?” Corey opined to the Connecticut Post when interviewed back in July. It is a good pitch, but one for which he has no campaign money to get out there, while Murphy has raised about $11 million, according to OpenSecrets. org, so much that he has been using it to help other Democrats get elected.
Evidence that Murphy is safely ahead are those nice political advertisements showing him walking around the state meeting voters. There is no need to beat up Corey. But Murphy has a nuclear arsenal if he needs it. Even if Corey had some cash to go after Murphy, electing a Republican to help push the Trump agenda in Washington would not play well in Blue State Connecticut.
Which brings us to the other big and growing gap — the gender gap — which is shaping up as huge in the gubernatorial race.
The poll showed Democrat Ned Lamont leading Republican Bob Stefanowski 47 percent to 39 percent. The good news for independent Oz Griebel is that he is up to 11 percent, which should get him into the last two debates.
The better news for Lamont is that gender gap. Women back Lamont over Stefanowski by a margin of 53 percent to 31 percent, with 13 percent for Griebel. Stefanowski has to close that gap significantly to win. I don’t see how.
These women, furious about what they see as the failure of Senate Republicans and the Trump White House to take seriously the allegations of sexual misconduct in Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s high school and college past, are motivated to vote. The erosion in health care coverage and the prospects that this Supreme Court could restrict reproductive rights also motivate them.
Stefanowski has tried to dismiss these as federal matters, while still aligning himself with Trump on tax and economic policy. As the poll documents, it’s not working with many women voters. Time is running out to try a different tack. Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.