New Q Poll: Doodles Still in Trouble

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, called Doodles here to honor a nickname coined years ago in the Capitol Press Room, is still in big trouble. The Quinnipiac University Poll released this morning indicates that his job approval is a dismal 42-percent and Rob Simmons, the former Second District congressman has a 48-39 percent edge among 1,499 registered Connecticut voters polled betweem July 16 and 20.

 It’s still hard to imagine that Dodd could lose in Blue State Connecticut, but he’s gained only 3 points since the May 27 poll, just outside the 2.5-percent margin of error. 

“Sen. Dodd continuers to be in trouble,” Q Poll Director Doug Schwartz just told reporters outside the press room. “Only 35 percent of voters say he is honest and trustworthy, but there are signs of hope for Sen. Dodd. His approval rating is up 4 points from out last poll and he’s up 9 points from our poll in April. But no progress on the honesty-and-trustworthy front. No progress in his match up against Rob Simmons. Where we see the progress on job approval, it’s coming mainly from Democrats. In previous surveys he’s been in the 50s in terms of his job approval among Democrats. Now he’s back above 70 percent. Where he continues to struggle is independents, where he gets a negative job-approval rating. Independents are going to be a lot harder to turn around than his own partisans, but that’s really where he has to make progress.”