Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat with a positive job approval and a double-digit lead over Republican Ryan Fazio, appears immune to concerns over the high cost of living in Connecticut as voters direct their ire at a Republican president whose brand has become toxic in the midterm election.
A new Wesleyan SurveyLab CT poll finds Lamont leading Fazio by 57% to 34% among likely voters, fresh evidence of the inability of the Republican challenger to exploit pocketbook concerns that typically would land at the feet of an incumbent seeking a third term.
Instead, voters’ focus is on the Republican who has become an asset to the Democrats and a liability for the GOP: President Donald Trump, who insisted on live television Thursday outside the White House, “Our economy is, literally, we’ve never had anything like it, it’s so good.”
Trump’s job approval sank to 36% in a Fox News poll this week, a new low in the national survey. In Connecticut, it’s worse: Only 27% of those surveyed by Wesleyan approved of Trump’s performance and 70% disapproved, an anchor on Fazio and other blue-state Republicans.
“Voter pessimism about the economy seems to be driving down Trump’s approval rating in the state, which matches a nationwide trend,” said Logan Dancey, associate professor of government at Wesleyan. “Although voters are also concerned about the economy in Connecticut, it doesn’t appear to be dragging down Lamont’s approval ratings to the same extent.”
Lamont’s job performance was approved by 56% and disapproved by 37%.
The poll was designed by Wesleyan with input from The Connecticut Mirror and The Connecticut Project. It was conducted Sept. 22 to Oct. 7 by YouGov and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.54 percentage points in the full sample and 4.84 points in the likely voter analysis.
The Lamont campaign moved Thursday to link Fazio to Trump in the eyes of voters as early voting opens Monday, the start of a two-week countdown to the Nov. 3 election. It released a 30-second commercial tightly reviewing Trump’s performance and a clip of Fazio saying, “I think he’s doing a good job.”
A narrator makes three statements: “Trump’s war in Iran is making gas prices skyrocket;” “the federal deficit is now $2 trillion;” “and Trump’s reckless tariffs are jacking up the price of everything.” After each statement, the spot jumps to same cut of Fazio saying, “I think he’s doing a good job.”
The Wesleyan poll found nothing matched pocketbook issues for commanding the attention of voters. Forty percent named inflation and the cost of living as the most important issue facing Connecticut, with taxes a distant second at 17%. Nothing else broke double digits.
The dominant mood on the U.S. economy is pessimism, with 70% seeing deterioration over the past year, albeit to varying degrees: 33% saw it as “somewhat worse;” 37.4% called it “much worse.” The view of Connecticut was better, yet still concerning — about 55% saw its economy as worsening.
“Cost of living issues and expenses are top of mind for Connecticut voters,” said Erika Franklin Fowler, a government professor at Wesleyan. “Affordability is far and away the top issue voters see facing the state as over 8 in every 10 think it is at least somewhat hard to earn a living wage and afford basic goods in our state.”
Only 16.6% viewed earning “a living wage” and affording “basic goods and services” as somewhat easy (14%) or very easy (2.6%.) And more than 70% say that task has gotten harder.
Not quite half of voters said that their financial situation had gotten somewhat or much worse over the last year, but the Wesleyan analysts said that masked significant variation across groups: Sixty percent of working class respondents said their situation had gotten worse, compared to 43% of middle-class respondents and 30% of upper-class respondents.
“More strikingly,” the analysts said, “25% of working-class respondents said their personal financial situation had gotten ‘much worse,’ compared to 7% of middle class respondents and 1% upper class respondents.”
Fazio, 36, a state senator from Greenwich elected five years ago, has campaigned heavily on those issues, promising to cut electric rates by eliminating most programs currently financed by the public benefits charge on electric bills. The Wesleyan poll is the fifth public survey of the governor’s race in recent weeks, all showing Lamont with comfortable leads.
Fazio proposes tax cuts that he says would return $2,000 to $2,500 annually to middle-class families by 2031. To finance that relief, Fazio says he would cut annual spending by more than $1.2 billion and borrowing by another $500 million, steps Democrats say would force cuts in vital services.
“We are running on specific plans that will provide thousands of dollars of economic relief for the average middle-class family in my first term and build on that work in a second term,” Fazio said at a campaign stop Wednesday. “We can make the state affordable. We can create opportunity. That’s my message to voters.”
Lamont, 72, who was elected in 2018, has countered with a campaign noting that Connecticut has achieved fiscal stability since he took office with a string of budget surpluses that have filled the state’s budget reserve to its statutory maximum and paid down an funded pension liability.
Fazio was asked at Wednesday how he can compete with the president for the attention of voters and counter a string of polls indicating the public blames Trump for the economy, not the governor.
“We have a unique cost of living crisis in Connecticut that requires a change in state policy in order to make Connecticut affordable,” Fazio replied. “You can’t blame it on anyone else that the governor raised taxes on food, that the governor raised taxes on online purchases, that the governor raised payroll taxes, that the governor raised hidden taxes and fees in the electric bill.”
Less than two hours later, Quinnipiac University released a poll showing Lamont leading, 58% to 38%, with 29% disapproving of Trump’s performance. It also found that Lamont scored best among voters who identified the economy and cost of living as their most important issues.
