Malloy up 10

When PPP first surveyed the Connecticut Governor's race in January Dan Malloy led Tom Foley by 10 points. Fast forward 9 months and things haven't changed at all. Democrats won't pick up a lot of offices they don't already hold in 2010 but it appears CT-GOV will be one of them. Malloy leads Foley 50-40.

The formula for a Republican to win in Connecticut is three fold: 1) get virtually all of the Republican vote, 2) get a fair amount of crossover support from Democrats, and 3) post a big lead with independents. Right now Foley is doing none of those things. 18% of Republicans are crossing over to support Malloy, a much higher level of folks crossing over party lines to support a Democrat than we're seeing in most races. Foley is winning only 12% of Democrats, much less support than he would need to pull an upset in a deep blue state. And although Foley's ahead with independents it's only by 6 points. By comparison Scott Brown took independents by 32 points in his upset victory earlier this year.

Malloy's net favorability is +21 with 50% of voters holding a positive opinion of him to only 29% with a negative one. That actually makes him the most popular candidate for Senate or Governor in the state this year- Richard Blumenthal has similar positives to Malloy but much higher negatives. Democrats pretty universally see Malloy favorably, a quarter of Republicans do, and he's on positive ground with independents as well.

Voters are pretty evenly divided in their attitudes toward Foley with 41% having a favorable opinion to 40% with a negative one. Foley has better numbers with independents than Malloy. But he's neither as popular with Republicans as Malloy is with Democrats nor as popular with Democrats as Malloy is with Republicans.

Jodi Rell will leave office as one of the most popular Governors in the country with a 53% approval rating to only 36% of voters disapproving of her. But it doesn't look like that will be enough to keep her office in her party's control.

Full results here