No Q Poll before Tuesday’s primary? Say it ain’t so

What a difference four years make. Back in the mud-slinging political year of 2010, the respected Quinnipiac University Poll came out with five statewide voter-preference surveys between May and the August gubernatorial primary. Of course there were U.S. Senate primaries, too, which led to the fall, 2010 election of Democrat Dick Blumenthal to the Senate over Republican wrestling czarina Linda McMahon. This year, without the apparent heat of the congressional campaigns, the Quinnipiac Poll has been dormant following its its early May poll, which found Tom Foley of Greenwich with 39 percent of Republican votes and state Senate Minority Leader John McKinney with 8 percent in the race for the party nomination to challenge Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. That was before the GOP state convention, where McKinney earned enough support to pursue a primary; and before the Citizens Election Fund grant that gives McKinney and his running mate, David Walker of Bridgeport, more than a $1.5 million to match Foley’s public financing. Internal polls show that McKinney is making up for lost ground, but the only accurate survey, now that Quinnipiac has bowed out, will be on Primary Day.

Douglas Schwartz, director of the Poll, was asked why no pre-primary survey of voters: ” We’re not doing a poll. We don’t comment on our poll schedule.”

Going back to that August 9, 2010 Q Poll on the Democratic gubernatorial primary, Ned Lamont of Greenwich was shown to be the leader over Malloy by 45 percent to 42 percent. But in the actual primary voting, Malloy emerged with a 59-41 victory.

If you want to keep score at home, here’s the link to the Q Poll’s Connecticut polling going back to the dawn of man, or thereabouts:

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/search-releases/search-results/release-detail?ReleaseID=1486&What=&strArea=1;&strTime=28