Linda McMahon would handily outpoll former Congressman Chris Shays in a Republican primary for an open U.S. Senate, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Friday.
But McMahon would go on to lose to either of two of the Democratic contenders, former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy.
Poll Director Douglas Schwartz noted that's its far too early in the 2012 election cycle to predict the outcome with any degree of confidence. The party primaries won't be held until next August and the general election is more than a year away. Neither Shays nor McMahon have formally entered the race yet, although Shays has set a date of Oct. 3 and McMahon is expected to announce before then.
"Voters aren't focused on the campaign,'' Schwartz said during a briefing at the Capitol. But the poll provides a useful measure of the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates in the nascent stages, he added.
McMahon, the former CEO of WWE and the GOP's 2010 Senate nominee, would overwhelm Shays, who lost his 4th District seat in 2008, the poll found. McMahon would capture 50 percent of the Republican primary vote to Shays' 35 percent.
But in head to head match ups with the Democrats, Shays performs better than McMahon, according to the poll. Murphy would beat McMahon, 49 percent to 38 percent. Bysiewicz would top her, 46 percent to 38 percent. The poll has Shays losing to Murphy but narrowly beating Bysiewicz.
More troubling for McMahon: some of the issues that dogged her in the 2010 contest haven't gone away. Her unfavorable rating stands at 45 percent and she remains particularly unpopular with women voters, according to the poll.
"Her strength is she's the best known candidate in the race,'' Schwartz said. "Obviously her weakness is she's also the most unfavorably viewed candidate in the race.''
Past Q polls have documented an uneasiness among women voters, in particular, about McMahon's roots as an executive in the professional wrestling industry. "What we found in the last campaign is women have an especially negative view of professional wrestling," Schwartz said.
Shays' unfavorable rating, by comparison, is just 14 percent, although 44 percent of voters don't know enough about him to form an opinion.
"There's still a large percentage of voters who don't have an opinion of Shays so he has a better opportunity of obtaining a more positive impression,'' Schwartz said.
A similar opportunity awaits the two Democratic frontrunners, Murphy and Bysiewicz.
Murphy, who leads Bysiewicz by 10 percentage points, remains unknown by 45 percent of voters, the survey found.
"There's a very large [number of] undecided [voters] in the Democratic primary, plenty of room for movement,'' Schwartz said. "Both candidates have large percentage of voters who don't know enough about them.''
Bysiewicz' name has appeared on many statewide ballots and in countless headlines; she served as secretary of the state from 1999 to 2011. Yet 33 percent of those polled said they have not heard enough about her to form an opinion.
Bysiewicz' unfavorable numbers have ticked upward. In Feb., 2009, 12 percent of those polled had an unfavorable view of her; in the current Q poll, her unfavorable rating stands at 27 percent. By comparison, Murphy was viewed as unfavorable by 16 percent of those polled.
A third Democrat in the race, Stamford state Sen. William Tong, with negligible support among voters in his party: Just one percent of the Democrats polled said they intend to vote for him.
The poll did not acknowledge the only Republican candidate officially in the race, Windsor attorney Brian K. Hill.
The seat is currently held by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who announced in January that he will not seek reelection.
The telephone poll of 1,230 registered voters was conducted from Sept. 8-13. The overall margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.