Rasmussen: Chafee leads in gov. race

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - The newest poll of Rhode Island voters shows former Sen. Lincoln Chafee is leading over state treasurer Frank Caprio and the state's attorney general, Patrick Lynch.

Rasmussen Reports did the poll back on Feb. 25, telephoning 500 likely voters.

Rasmussen posed hypothetical three-way contests between a Democrat, the Independent Chafee and Republican John Robitaille, the communications director for current Gov. Don Carcieri. It didn't matter who the Democrat was -- Chafee won out both times. The breakdown of the numbers:

Chafee's camp says they're highly encouraged by the results. "The poll, which is the third independent poll this month showing Senator Chafee leading the state's gubernatorial campaign, indicates that the voters of Rhode island prefer a governor who is not encumbered by partisan politics," said campaign manager J.R. Pagliarini in an emailed statement Tuesday afternoon.

The other two recent polls include the exclusive Eyewitness News poll released at the beginning of February, and a Brown University poll released at the end of February. In that poll, Chafee was in a statistical dead heat with Lynch -- Chafee got 31% while Lynch got 30%.

Rasmussen also asked whether they simply have a favorable opinion of the current gubernatorial candidates. Since the campaign is still in an early stage, Rasmussen considers these figures more significant than overall totals:

Rasmussen's extensive poll also asked questions about the economy (45% of the 500 voters say their own finances are getting worse), tax increases or cuts, and national security, as well as the job Gov. Carcieri is doing (54% of the 500 disapprove of his performance).

Read the full details about the Rasmussen poll at their web site.

Of note is the lack of Moderate Party candidate Ken Block in the Rasmussen poll. He announced his candidacy Feb. 16, more than a week before Rasmussen polled voters.

Rasmussen's margin of sampling error for the survey is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, with a 95% level of confidence. Rasmussen's methodology is detailed here. Margin of error indicates how close the poll's results are to the true figures for the entire population of voters; the higher the margin of error, the less faith should be put in the sample of (in this case) 500 likely voters.