Q poll: Linda McMahon leads Chris Murphy

Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy is no Richard Blumenthal.

The Quinnipiac University Poll released this morning gives Greenwich millionaire Linda McMahon a narrow three-point lead over the third-term congressman from the 5th District in the race to replace U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman.

The 49 percent to 46 percent edge that Republican McMahon holds over Murphy with likely voters should be a warning to Democrats who plan to retain the Senate seat that was last held by a Republican in 1989, when U.S. Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. yielded to Lieberman after the 1988 elections.

The survey mirrors one published last week by Rasmussen Reports that showed McMahon with an identical 49-46 lead.

The Quinnipiac poll is the first in the Connecticut race this year conducted among likely voters, rather than registered voters.

McMahon’s  edge is just outside the 2.6-percent margin of error in the poll of 1,472 likely voters. It shows that McMahon is making positive steps among Connecticut voters, who at this time in 2010 said they preferred Blumenthal, then the state’s veteran attorney general, 53-46 percent.

He went on to easily defeat McMahon 55-43 percent that November.

Poll Director Douglas Schwartz today called the McMahon-Murphy race “too-close-to-call,” but acknowledged that the current results are a positive sign McMahon, who has improved her statewide image over the last two years.

Read the full Hearst Connecticut Media Group story on the poll right here.