BREAKING: Brown Poll Shakes Up Political Race
Friday, August 06, 2010

The poll found 27.9 percent of voters supporting Caprio versus 26.5 percent for Chafee. The numbers are with the margin of error, a statistical dead heat. More than 30 percent of the voters were undecided, Republican John Robitaille had 7 percent support and Victor Moffitt had 2 percent. Moderate Party candidate Ken Block came in at 3 percent.
It is the first survey taken after Caprio's Democratic primary opponent, Patrick Lynch, dropped out of the race. The results are consistent with two Rasmussen Reports polls released earlier this summer, which showed Caprio and Chafee neck and neck, although it is the first time Caprio has had actually had a lead over his lead opponent (click here and here for the previous polls). The Brown poll also had the two Republicans earning less support than they had in previous surveys.
Cicilline Has Lead in Congressional Race
The poll also showed Providence Mayor David Cicilline leading in the race replace Patrick Kennedy in the First District seat in Congress, with 32 percent support. He was followed by 15 percent for Bill Lynch, 11 percent Anthony Gemma, and 5 percent for David Segal.
In the Second District race, incumbent Jim Langevin had a wider lead over his Democratic primary opponents. If the primary were held today, Langevin would win with 55 percent of the vote, leaving Betsy Dennigan with 12 percent and Ernest Greco with one percent.
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Comments:
Oberon Sexton
11:15am on Friday, August 06, 2010
As the great Harry Caray used to say - Holy Cow!
Lynch can't be happy with this poll - 17 points is a huge gap to make up in 6 weeks, especially for someone who jumped in as a heavy-hitter but has yet to break the 15% threshold. My only guess is he'll go very negative very soon.
Cue the negative mailers in 3, 2, 1...
Jesse Tuggle
11:19am on Friday, August 06, 2010
Pretty surprised how very close the Gov race is, but the real news is the gap in the First District. Like Oberon says, it's tough to see this changing in the next six weeks --but you have to think the negative politics will start pretty soon.
Jack Greene
11:22am on Friday, August 06, 2010
Lynch should just follow his brother's lead and drop out of the race. Not only are his fund raising efforts falling flat, he is now trailing by seventeen points!
Matthew Colasanti
12:05pm on Friday, August 06, 2010
After reading this you'd figure Bill Lynch would have the sense to follow in his brothers footsteps and drop out too.
Adda Nielson
12:41pm on Friday, August 06, 2010
Oberon makes a good point, I am really not looking forward to Lynch potentially tarnishing the Party image more than he already has...He should just drop out. I think that, while there may be a high margin of error, this poll shows that the lead is too high to muddle with negative stuff on the frontrunner. Democrats in 2010!
John Smith
1:24pm on Friday, August 06, 2010
First of all everyone check out the article on wpri.com about how off this poll really is for CD1!!! Lynch is more like 5 points back and when you sample only 174 people with a plus minus of 7%....Seriously bring back Darrell West please!!!!!!!
John Smith
1:29pm on Friday, August 06, 2010
It's obvious the candidate with the money can pay his staff to sit around all day and blog for him... Again everyone check out the wpri.com article which makes reference to what the poll really means....And talk about hurting the party how about what ChickaChini is doing to his own city on his way out???? Voters care more about that then they do about hurting the Democratic Party....If DC wins in CD1 just mark that seat in Congress Republican!!!
Gary Trott
1:29pm on Friday, August 06, 2010
The 30 percent who chose "undecided" pretty much tells the story. People aren't sure of who they prefer, but I'm positive that it won't be Chaffee. When the important "poll" is held on November 2 people aren't going to vote for him...the guy who wants to tax the food on their tables and the clothes on their backs. When it's all over and done Chaffee is going to come in a distant 4th, 5th, 6th, or 7th place and maybe then we'll be done with him once and for all.
Brian Hull
12:07am on Saturday, August 07, 2010
This poll is utterly meaningless. The RI Future blog has a great breakdown of why the poll should never have seen the light of day.
http://www.rifuture.org/did-anyone-even-look-at-the-new-brown-university-poll.html
Victor Profughi
10:24am on Saturday, August 07, 2010
Brian Hull's critique is right on target. With more than 40 years of polling experience in Rhode Island, I have never seen such bogus work. If any professional pollster would ever produce such junk for a private client he/she would immediately be out of business.
Even worse, golocalprov initially reported this junk as if it was credible. Utterly irresponsible!