Free Republic

Governor's approval rating is 78 percent Hartford - Gov. M. Jodi Rell maintains her commanding lead over potential Democratic opponents John DeStefano and Dan Malloy in a new poll released this morning by Quinnipiac University. Rell's approval rating remains "sky high," Poll Director Douglas Schwartz said, with 78 percent of those surveyed saying they approve of the job she is doing as governor. That is virtually unchanged since July, when 79 percent of voters said they approved of the governor's performance. In a match-up with DeStefano, the mayor of New Haven, Rell would win, 64 percent to 21 percent. She...

Republican Jerry W. Kilgore is leading in the Virginia governor's race despite efforts by Democrat Timothy M. Kaine to tap widespread satisfaction with Gov. Mark R. Warner's performance, according to a new Washington Post poll. Among all registered voters, Kilgore is ahead by 4 percentage points as the campaign enters its final two months. His lead widens to 7 percentage points among those most likely to vote.Kilgore, a former attorney general, has cast himself as the perfect fit for a traditionally conservative state.

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va.--Virginia’s two major-party candidates for governor agreed Saturday that they offer vastly different visions for the state’s next chief executive, but found little other common ground in a feisty 90-minute debate in which Republican Jerry W. Kilgore proved more aggressive. Kilgore asserted several times during the Virginia Bar Association-sponsored event that Democrat Timothy M. Kaine would issue blanket clemency to death row inmates because he is opposed to capital punishment for philosophical and religious reasons. The Republican, a supporter of the death penalty and an abortion opponent, said Kaine has called for a moratorium on the death...