Posted on 08/31/2006 11:46:13 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee may lose his seat to challenger Steve Laffey, according to a new statewide Republican primary voter poll released today by the Bureau of Government Research and Services at Rhode Island College.
The survey was conducted August 28-30, 2006, at Rhode Island College by Victor L. Profughi, director of the Bureau of Government Research and Services. It is based on a statewide random sample of 363 likely Republican primary voters in Rhode Island. The sample was proportioned among the state’s geographic regions to reflect the likely voter contribution from each portion of the state. Overall, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.1 percentage points.
If the September 12 primary were held today, 51 percent say they will vote for Steve Laffey, 34 percent support Senator Chafee, and 15 percent are undecided. A BGRS survey of Republican voters conducted in June had Laffey at 39 percent and Chafee at 36 percent. Chafee’s base is virtually unchanged since the June survey, while the number of Laffey supporters has grown 12 percentage points.
In the current poll, Laffey buries Chafee among male voters by nearly a 2 to 1 margin, 58 percent to 32 percent, with only 9 percent undecided. This gap has widened from 10 percent in June to 26 percent today. Among women, Chafee’s support has remained stagnant, while Laffey’s has increased. In June, 37 percent favored Chafee, compared with the current 36 percent. Laffey’s support among women has gone up from 35 percent in June to 45 percent.
Regionally, Laffey leads Chafee in Newport County (58 percent to 25 percent), in the Providence Suburbs (56 percent to 33 percent), Blackstone Valley (49 percent to 32 percent), Washington County (48 percent to 39 percent), and Western Rhode Island (42 percent to 37). Chafee is ahead only in the city of Providence (53 percent to 40 percent) and the East Bay (40 percent to 36 percent). Among unaffiliated voters, Chafee’s support has slipped from 49 percent in June to 43 percent now, while Laffey’s strength has gone up 10 percentage points (31 percent to 41 percent).
“Since early summer, Senator Chafee has been unable to expand his base of support from roughly one third of the likely Republican primary voters. The Lieberman phenomenon, where a partisan base closes ranks around the ‘true partisan’ candidate, seems to be at work in Rhode Island, as it was on the Democratic side in Connecticut. Laffey’s efforts to link Chafee with the extremely unpopular President Bush also appear to be paying off,” said Profughi.
Respondents polled were also asked who they would vote for in the Republican Primary race for Lieutenant Governor between Reginald Centracchio and Kerry King. Nearly half of those surveyed are either undecided or will not vote on this race (51 percent). Among voters, Centracchio has a 2 to 1 lead over King (31 percent to 18 percent).
The survey was conducted at a centralized telephone bank on the RIC campus on Monday, August 28 through Wednesday, August 30, between 5:00 and 9:00 p. m. The sample of 363 voters consisted of persons who identified themselves as likely Republican primary voters. Those interviewed were randomly chosen from most recent updated voting lists provided by the Office of the Secretary of State and were limited to registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters who said they planned to vote in the Republican primary.
The sample was controlled to reflect likely voter contribution by geographic region. Survey design, implementation, and administration were supervised by Profughi, who has nearly 40 years of experience conducting public opinion surveys in Rhode Island. He and members of his supervisory and computer analysis team have conducted more than 1,000 surveys in the state since 1970.
Overall, the current poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
Aaah, Hugh - the biggest RINO lover of them all. That book of his was easily the most infuriating "conservative" read I've ever had. Sure, give all your donations to the RSNC so they can pi$$ it away on people like Chafee. No thanks. Glad I only spent $4 on it at the local discount store.
Hugh is right about the need to get to 51, he just totally misses how to do it. He thinks we need to continually bend over for the RINO contingent.
Hugh is wrong - dead wrong. Here is the key:
GWB carried 30 states in 2004 (31 in 2000). If there are 30 red states capable of producing 60 GOP senators, why are we spending precious resources defending the Chafees, Snowes, Collins', and Specters of the world? Why doesn't the RNC concentrate instead focus on making sure we never see another 'Rat senator in places like North Dakota and Montana?
By doing so you may take some shortterm losses, but in the longterm you not only increase the # of senators from the current 55, in addition you are no longer held hostage by the RINOs. We have the numbers on our side.
Part of me thinks the GOP has no interest in flushing the RINOs - without them, they would have to govern in as conservative a fashion as they campaign.
Personally, I don't think they have any interest in doing that. They need someone to blame to cover their lack of conservative governance. Holding all three branches of government, the RINOs are their last excuse.
Don't even go down that road with me .... I've been arguing to to keep a majority for YEARS
With that said .. Chafee is one republican we do not need
He votes Dem 99.9999% of the time
Chafee is worse then McCain
What we need are not citizen legislators. Many of them have good ideals. But they don't really know what they're doing, and they're overmatched when they try to battle the Rat pros and the Rats' bureaucratic allies.
What we need are principled conservative career politicians who don't sell out -- or forget where they came from. Admittedly, there aren't many.
I can see the conservative idiots are out today.
Unlike lamont, laffey has no chance at winning and unlike lieberman, chaffee has no chance of winning as an independent
Chaffee will not pull a lieberman and a RI loss puts the dems 1/6 the way to controlling the senate and all the judicial appointments that will follow.
He worked as a farrier, not that there's anything wrong with that. We suspect he was kicked in the head by one two many horses. That explains the goofy expression on his face.
I find there are many principled conservative politicians.
You meant to say there aren't many who agree with your litmus test issues.
Do you remember Jim Jeffords?
I think you meant to say "ALL polls should him performing worse than Chaffee and worse by a wide margin"
this is a lie or a gross exageration to the point of being a lie or you are an idiot.
Could you list Chaffee's five most important votes in support of the adminsitration?
Great news in the wake of Ann Coulter's skewering of Lincoln Chaffe in yesterday's column. Rhode Island finally gets it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1692769/posts
I've been following him for awhile and don't recall hearing/seeing anything about his support, or lack thereof, for Bush in the WoT.
As far as him being a conservative, he's a libertarian-esque fiscal conservative. I'm not sure about the social issues. He's also big on renewable energy but not a watermelon at all. For the NE voters he would really be as good as we could hope for and, IMHO, a sign of what type of Republican can win up there. Hopefully the country club Republicans in RI will rally around him if he beats their boy in the primary.
Chafee has every intention of switching to the 'Rats once we get to 50, so that he can obtain a Chairmanship or some other perks. Time to show this trash the door.
You are defending Chaffee ???
Hey .. go for it
Verses what? The entire state of Rhode Island is smaller than most cities.
You can probably name less than 100 dem politicians nationwide and the democrat opponent in RI will not be on that list.
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