Poll shows Chafee, Caprio leading, Lynch, Robitaille trailing

Published Feb. 6, 2010 at 4:17 a.m.

By Katherine Gregg
and Steve Peoples

PROVIDENCE -- Independent Lincoln D. Chafee could be the man to beat in the race for governor in Rhode Island, according to the first independent poll of the 2010 election season.

Although he has been out of office since losing his U.S. Senate seat in 2006, Chafee would be in a statistical "dead heat" with General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio and he would lead the state's two-term Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch by 11 points if he faced either Democrat today in a three-way race for governor, according to a WPRI-TV, Channel 12 poll released Friday night.

In each of the three-way matchups, Governor Carcieri's former communications director John Robitaille, a Republican, trailed the pack.

But pollster Joseph Fleming said a deeper look inside the numbers tells him the race is still "wide open,'' in part, because the election is months out, a large number of voters are still undecided and the entry of one or more additional candidates could change the dynamic.

Delving into the psyche of Rhode Island's voters, the survey of 501 registered voters conducted Jan. 27-31 also found festering dissatisfaction with the direction in which the state is headed. Republican Governor Carcieri got poor grades from 59 percent of the electorate. One-quarter blamed Carcieri and the Democrat-led General Assembly equally for state's budget problems.

But many more people (53 percent) blamed the state's part-time lawmakers for the state's unrelenting budget crisis, than the governor (15 percent). ]

And when asked which way the state should go to solve the current financial crisis -- raise taxes or cut spending and services -- 61 percent opted for cuts. Only 14 percent said raise taxes; another 14 percent said both. Others were unsure.

Fleming said the results suggest Rhode Islanders agree six-to-one with the governor's no tax increase approach to digging the state out. The poll did not, however, ask those surveyed if they believed the steep local aid cuts Carcieri has proposed would force widespread property tax increases, as municipal leaders have said.

But most of the buzz generated by the poll is likely to focus on the findings in the governor's race:

In one matchup, Chafee had 34 percent, Lynch 23 percent, and Robitaille, 18 percent with 22 percent unsure. In the other, Chafee had 31 percent, Caprio 30 percent, Robitaille 13 percent with 23 percent unsure.

Republican-turned-independent Chafee is "grabbing votes from all over," Fleming said, including some Republicans and a good number of Democrats, while winning a contest with Caprio for the independent vote. "Right now, that makes him a credible candidate," Fleming said, but he questioned if voters would return on Election Day to their "traditional roots."

Among the candidates, there were mixed reactions.

"At this point, it's all about name recognition. And I'm not going to read much into it," Robitaille said, adding that the poll offered some cause for optimism just three weeks after he announced his candidacy. "I am surprised that I have numbers as high as I do, and that I'm as close to Patrick Lynch as I am."

In a field that includes Lynch, the little-known Robitaille finishes just 5 points behind the two-term attorney general. Against Caprio, however, Robitaille falls 17 points behind, indicating the potential strength of Caprio's pull among some Republican voters.
The Caprio camp hailed the poll as "good news," and drew attention to the treasurer's job approval rating of 44 percent, with many fewer people ranking his performance as "fair to poor" than was so for Lynch, who had a 40-percent approval, 52-percent disapproval response.

"Having the strongest job-approval numbers of any elected R.I. official, other than [U.S. Sen.] Jack Reed, means that from what voters know of Frank, they seem to like him, and having the highest unknowns, means there is a lot of room for him to grow as Rhode Islanders get to know Frank," Caprio's spokeswoman Margie O'Brien said.

But the Lynch camp played down Friday's results, with campaign manager Mike Mikus saying: "A poll today is no indicator of what the voters will do on Election Day."

Mikus said a poll might reflect any one of the politically unpopular decisions that Lynch makes as attorney general. Lynch, for example, has been the target of recent criticism for his handling of a corruption investigation into Central Falls Mayor Charles Moreau. Mikus dismissed the criticism as "a complete distortion of the facts," but could not say whether the issue hurt Lynch in the recent poll.

For Chafee, the poll was largely a reaffirmation of the findings, he made public, of a poll conducted for his campaign last October. He said he is "still happy" to be ahead, but has "always assumed it was going to be a competitive race," and keenly aware of the "fluid dynamics" given the anticipated entry of an as yet unidentified Moderate Party candidate.

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