Starboard Broadside

Former US Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) is running as an independent candidate to become governor of Rhode Island. The liberal ex-Republican served in the US Senate from 1999 to 2007, when he left after now-Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) defeated his re-election bid. Chafee, who's pro-choice and supports climate action and marriage equality, among other things, and opposed the Iraq war (the only Republican Senator to do so), often butted heads with the conservative Republican leadership and President George W. Bush. He briefly considered challenging Bush in the 2004 Republican primary and says he didn't vote for him in the general election, and he had admitted that his own 2006 defeat which handed Senate control back to the Democrats was best for the country. I think he's an admirable guy, and he's more liberal than several of the current Democratic Senators, so I'm probably going to support his campaign for governor, though perhaps not very actively.

In any case, Rasmussen Reports has a new poll out from the Rhode Island gubernatorial race, with Chafee leading. As usual, I'll offer the caveat that Rasmussen has been heavily criticized since after the 2008 election for seeming to disfavor Democrats fairly consistently with an unusual 2010 turnout model. But I doubt Chafee supporters are conservatives, and the actual Republicans fare poorly, so this might be one of the better Ras polls. They did do ok in this year's Massachusetts polling, so maybe they get how to do New England, where others don't. Who knows. Here it is, regardless...

This statewide telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters in Rhode Island was conducted by Rasmussen Reports, February 25, 2010. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Lincoln Chafee (I) 37%
Frank Caprio (D) 27%
John Robitaille (R) 19%
undecided 17%

Lincoln Chafee (I) 38%
Patrick Lynch (D) 24%
John Robitaille (R) 22%
undecided 16%

They've also been criticized (more than other polling outfits) for picking and choosing whom to include in polls, even when there are other declared candidates, sometimes even including undeclared people. They only show one Republican here, but I think he's not the only one. Oh and they asked some push-polling questions (ones with biased wording to push a certain result) at some point, but it might have been later in the survey.

The current governor is a regressive Republican, who is term-limited and thus will not be in the election. This poll found he has 45/55 approval/disapproval rating, anyway, so he'd probably lose if he were running.