Hartford Courant: DeStefano Has 20-Point Edge

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Hartford Courant: DeStefano Has 20-Point Edge

The Hartford Courant July 21, 2006

Poll Puts Him Ahead Of Malloy In Democratic Race For Governor

By Christopher Keating

With only 18 days until the Democratic gubernatorial primary, a new poll shows New Haven Mayor John DeStefano with a 20-point lead over his rival, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, among likely voters.

The two mayors, who have pursued different advertising strategies, are promising a blitz of television commercials and direct mail in a sprint that ends on Aug. 8. But DeStefano avoided gloating Thursday about the latest Quinnipiac University poll that showed him leading Malloy 52 percent to 32 percent with 14 percent undecided. The polling, of 653 likely Democratic voters, was completed before the candidates live debate televised Tuesday in prime time.

"It's nice to have a 20-point lead," DeStefano said. "I recognize it's a poll. It's not an election result."

DeStefano, though, said he was not surprised by his lead because it is "consistent with what our polling is showing."

Not all the polling news was as positive for DeStefano.

The telephone survey of 2,502 registered voters showed both he and Malloy trailing Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell by at least 37 percentage points - a gap that has remained relatively consistent in the polls since November 2004. Despite nearly 21/2 years of campaigning and $2 million in campaign spending each, the Democratic mayors have been unable to cut into Rell's lead.

Overall, 70 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Republicans approve of the way Rell is handling her job.

Malloy's campaign manager, Chris Cooney, said the campaign is "just now ramping up a very intense and highly focused final phase of our paid communications plan" through television and direct mail.

"The poll is consistent with what we, you know, figured it would be," Malloy told reporters Thursday. "Each campaign has a different style of campaigning. Ours was clearly based on focusing on the last four, and really three, weeks of the campaign. ... What I believe is we're going to win on Aug. 8, based on our constant communication with people who are going to vote."

Malloy purposely delayed his television advertising until July 10, saying that DeStefano had wasted money by starting his TV campaign three weeks earlier. But some insiders say the politically smarter strategy is to reach voters in June, before they leave for vacation in mid-July.

Douglas Schwartz, the director of the Quinnipiac poll, said DeStefano's four television commercials have helped him pull ahead.

"He's been running more advertising on TV than Dan Malloy and is better known," Schwartz said Thursday. "It's certainly an uphill battle [for Malloy]. He's got his work cut out for him."

Despite winning his party's endorsement at the May 20 convention, Malloy received no "bounce" in the numbers - in sharp contrast to U.S. Senate challenger Ned Lamont, who skyrocketed in popularity after gaining one-third of the delegates at the same convention against Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman.

DeStefano's spokesman, Derek Slap, said the campaign is taking nothing for granted and will remain on the air until the primary.

"We're going to work our tails off the next 18 days and keep our foot on the pedal," Slap said. "We have a lot of work to do between now and election day."

The poll was released on a day Malloy apologized for a remark he made regarding hotel workers during Tuesday night's debate. While answering a question about eminent domain, and the type of developments that could replace residential housing, Malloy said, "I'm not talking about hotel jobs. I'm not talking about arenas. I'm talking about real jobs that will help build our economy."

Those remarks prompted DeStefano to travel to the Hartford Hilton Thursday to visit with workers and union officials who took offense to Malloy's remarks. About an hour later, Malloy was telling reporters that "perhaps my use of the language was inartful" during the debate.

"Hotel jobs in this state historically tend to be part-time and without benefits and underpaid," Malloy said. "I was trying to capture that. But if I offended anyone, I apologize."

In another development Thursday, Malloy put forth a tax plan that includes three elements that were similar to ones proposed by DeStefano: creation of the so-called millionaires' tax, property tax relief for senior citizens, and the repeal of corporate tax breaks.

Saying he wants to help local property owners, Malloy pledged to pour $545 million in additional state funding to cities and towns to pay for education. He would raise that money largely by repealing "at least $535 million in unnecessary tax breaks" that currently go to special interests. Pressed for examples, Malloy would cite only one: a sales tax exemption for the state's charter air industry that was retroactive to 1994 and costs the state an estimated $200,000 a year. That exemption became public during the investigation into former Gov. John G. Rowland, who accepted free flights to Las Vegas and other destinations from Key Air Inc., a company based in Oxford that officials said benefited from the tax break.