I was just alerted to a new Rasmussen poll on the Rhode Island Senate race by Sixers reader Tom Marcelle. The poll was conducted on 8/3/06 and surveyed 500 likely voters, with a +/- 4.5% margin of error. This was strictly a November election poll – no poll was done for the Republican primary.

Over the past few months, Lincoln Chafee has emphasized that he is the only Republican who can beat Sheldon Whitehouse. That is clearly not the case any more – Whitehouse leads Chafee 44% to 38%, with 7% preferring another candidate and 11% not sure. Chafee has dropped quite a bit for an incumbent the past few months – in June he led Whitehouse 44% to 42%.

It is widely suspected that the Chafee-Laffey primary race is at the very least close. Because of that, Chafee has been very aggressive in courting independents and Democrat voters to vote for him in the primary. In fact his wife was actively soliciting Democrats to disaffiliate last month so they could be able to vote for Chafee in the primary. But Rasmussen’s poll also shows that Chafee’s support among identified Democrats is declining – while he attracted support from 38% of Democrats in April, this month he only attracts support from 19% of them. This seems to indicate that Democrats might want Laffey to win, and will not come out in droves to vote for Chafee in the primary, because the polls show Whitehouse having a much easier time with Laffey as an opponent.

With Mayor Laffey as the Republican candidate, Whitehouse leads 55% to 31%, with 4% favoring some other candidate and 10% not sure. While these numbers look bad, it is important to keep a few things in mind. Laffey has been the target of unrelenting negative attacks from Chafee and the NRSC since last fall, so his negatives are up. Yet Laffey is still polling better statewide than he did in June. And remarkably he’s polling only 7% worse than Chafee. The Mayor has yet to really introduce himself to the statewide electorate in a positive manner – look for the Chafee-Laffey debates starting this week to do just that.

As for the Democrat, Sheldon Whitehouse has been polling better against Chafee but worse against Laffey in the last few months. The Whitehouse-Laffey numbers interest me. Local media has been very tough on Mayor Laffey, and have given Whitehouse (who has no real primary opponent) a free ride. Furthermore, Whitehouse has a history in Rhode Island of starting fast and losing voters the more the public takes a look at him. Whitehouse himself admitted that he, and how he carries himself, was often the problem in a recent Providence Journal article that described Whitehouse’s last electoral bid as “disastrous”. The article also describes Whitehouse as:

“…in the mold of the blue-bloods who represented blue-collar Rhode Island in the Senate for much of the 20th century — think Claiborne Pell, Theodore Francis Green and John H. Chafee.”

Take it from a Rhode Island voter, Whitehouse comes off as a stiff blue blood as well. The Journal article describes how, after his most recent defeat, he was given a job at one of the premier blue-blood law firms in Rhode Island, Edwards & Angell (nice job if you got the connections – I wonder if he had to interview?). The article speaks nothing of his work or accomplishments during his time in the private sector, other than his uncomfortableness at having to deal with people who can pay $350 an hour. According to Whitehouse the best part of his job was – watching the peregrine falcons roost (I kid you not – read the article)! That’ll appeal to blue-collar workers! $350 an hour and watching birds out the window…

If Laffey is able to win the primary, look for Whitehouse to dip under the all-important 50% mark rather quickly. And then it’ll get interesting – a self-made man from very modest beginnings with experience in the real world versus a blue-blood life-long government employee who once publicly said (much to his regret) “that public service was a field he was "trained and basically bred to do."”