PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Many Americans associate Southern New England with the devout pilgrims who settled here in the 1600s, but a new poll shows the region’s religiosity is waning four centuries after the Mayflower arrived.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: Study: RI has 3rd-most baptisms, remains most Catholic state (March 12)

The overall wellbeing of residents in the Providence region was the third-lowest among the nation’s 52 largest metropolitan areas last year, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. The Providence metro area – which stretches from Rhode Island into Fall River and New Bedford – tied with Louisville, Ky., and topped only Tampa and Las Vegas. When metros of all sizes are included, Charleston, W.V., had the lowest wellbeing.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index score is based on six metrics: life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors, and access to basic necessities. A score of 100 is ideal.

As this chart shows, Providence residents were more likely to have health insurance and were basically average for rates of diabetes and obesity compared with other large metro areas. But locals were significantly less optimistic than their peers in other places:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – More than half of Rhode Island voters support allowing same-sex marriage in the state, while most opponents of the idea say it conflicts with their religious beliefs, according to a new poll released Thursday by Brown University.

The poll also found Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s approval rating is a dismal 26%. ”Lincoln Chafee still has not been able to move his numbers after over two years as governor,” WPRI 12 political analyst Joe Fleming said.

Read the rest of this story »

The Public Policy Polling survey [pdf] shows Raimondo would win anywhere from 32% to 46% of the vote depending on which hypothetical opponents she faces. She is the only candidate to crack 40% support in any of 10 ballot tests conducted by PPP.

If Raimondo is out of the picture, however, there’s no clear frontrunner: the leading candidates in non-Raimondo scenarios shift between Republican Brendan Doherty, Republican Allan Fung and Democrat Angel Taveras depending on the match-up. Moderate Party founder Ken Block starts out with double-digit support in most scenarios, suggesting his presence could have a major impact on the outcome.

Independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee faces an unsurprisingly uphill battle to win a second term, with more than half of voters saying they don’t want him to run again. His strongest shot at re-election comes if he runs as a Democrat: running under the party banner, Chafee starts out trailing Republicans Doherty and Fung by just four points. Among voters who do want Chafee to run again, 20% say he should run as an independent and 18% say he should run as a Democrat.

The automated telephone survey of 614 Rhode Island voters was conducted Jan. 28 to 30 by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-affiliated firm in Raleigh, N.C., that was widely praised for its accuracy in last November’s election. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points overall and 5.5 points on questions that were asked only of 320 Democratic primary voters.

PPP will release a second round of results on Friday concerning federal questions, including U.S. Sen. Jack Reed’s standing ahead of his 2014 re-election bid.

In a Democratic gubernatorial primary that includes Chafee, Raimondo gets 35% support, followed by Chafee at 22%, Taveras at 19% and Almonte at 11%. Another 12% of Democratic primary voters are unsure. Raimondo and Taveras both benefit if Chafee doesn’t run in the primary, with Raimondo rising to 44% and Taveras rising to 35%.

The silver lining for Chafee: his job approval rating has inched up to 33%, compared with the 22% he scored a year ago, though 59% still disapprove of his performance. However, PPP said its polling shows he’s the second most unpopular governor in the country, behind only Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn.

“Lincoln Chafee is really in a hole,” PPP President Dena Debnam said in a statement. “He managed to win in 2010 because of a splintered field but even that wouldn’t put him across the finish line at this point.”

The other potential candidates for governor are viewed positively overall: Taveras is on top with a 63% favorable rating, followed by Raimondo at 57%, Fung at 55% and Doherty at 45%.

The poll results will cheer supporters of same-sex marriage: 57% of Rhode Island voters say gay nuptials should be allowed in the state, while only 36% say they should not. Only 13% of voters say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship, while 31% would prefer civil unions over marriage.

Rhode Islanders will vote next year on whether the state should hold a constitutional convention, and at this early date 40% of voters say they support having one while 25% oppose doing so and 35% aren’t sure. Similarly, 46% of voters say they support the 2011 pension law championed by Raimondo, while 20% oppose the law and 34% aren’t sure.

In the secretary of state’s race, the lion’s share of Democratic primary voters don’t have a favorite candidate yet: Party Chairman Ed Pacheco gets 15% and Newport Democrat Guillaume de Ramel gets 8%.

Here are the poll results for all the potential general elections for governor tested by PPP:

• ​Raimondo​ 32%
• ​Doherty​ 28%
• ​Chafee [I]​ 22%
• ​Block​ 8%
• ​unsure​ 9%

• ​Doherty​ 31%
• ​Taveras​ 26%
• ​Chafee [I] 23%
• ​Block​ 10%
• ​unsure​ 10%

• ​Raimondo​ 35%
• ​Fung​ 23%
• Chafee [I] 21%
• Block 10%
• ​unsure​ 12%

• ​Fung​ 26%
• Taveras 26%
• Chafee [I] 20%
• Block 13%
• unsure 14%

• ​Doherty​ 39%
• Chafee [D]​ 35%
• ​Block​ 13%
• unsure 14%

• ​Fung​ 36%
• Chafee [D] 32%
• Block 16%
• unsure 15%

• ​Raimondo​ 44%
• Doherty 32%
• Block 10%
• unsure 14%

• ​Raimondo​ 46%
• Fung 27%
• Block 12%
• unsure 14%

• ​Taveras​ 39%
• Doherty 35%
• Block 13%
• unsure 13%

• Taveras 37%
• Fung 31%
• Block 15%
• unsure 17%

And here are the scenarios tested with Democratic primary voters only:

• Raimondo 35%
• Chafee 22%
• Taveras 19%
• Almonte 11%
• unsure 12%

• Raimondo 44%
• Taveras 35%
• Almonte 9%
• unsure 13%

• Pacheco 15%
• de Ramel 8%
• unsure 77%

• Related: Chafee raised $92,000 for re-election bid in fourth quarter (Jan. 31)

While there’s no doubt the issue remains controversial, polling suggests House lawmakers will be acting in line with public opinion if it approves gay marriage today.

Last September, a WPRI 12 poll showed same-sex marriage enjoys significant support among Rhode Islanders, with 56% of voters in favor of legalization, 36% opposed and 8% unsure.

Support for same-sex marriage is fairly broad among different types of voters, with one exception: Republicans. Rhode Island GOP voters are the only group that has a majority against legalization, with 59% opposed (and 40% strongly opposed). Voters ages 60 and older are closely split, with 49% of seniors in favor and 43% opposed.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats and voters ages 18 to 39 are the strongest supporters of allowing same-sex marriage in Rhode Island: 72% of Democrats and 64% of 18- to 39-year-olds are in favor. Nearly half of voters in each group say they’re strongly in favor.

Legalizing same-sex marriage in Rhode Island also has majority support from voters in union households (64%), voters ages 40 to 59 (60%), women (58%), men (54%) and independents (50%). The telephone interview poll with 501 likely Rhode Island voters was conducted Sept. 26 to 29 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus approximately 4.38 percentage points.

The September WPRI poll is just the most recent to find majority support for same-sex marriage in Rhode Island. Surveys from Public Policy Polling in 2011 and Brown University in 2009 led to similar results.

The polling suggests it’s probably inevitable that same-sex marriage will be legalized at some point in Rhode Island, the only New England state where it’s not allowed, particularly if supporters can capitalize on their advantage in the court of public opinion. Still, it may take longer than one expects at first glance because of the conservative Democrats who control the Senate.

It’s widely known that Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed of Newport opposes same-sex marriage, although she says she won’t block a committee vote this session. Another opponent is Warwick Sen. Michael McCaffrey, who not only chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee but eventually may succeed Paiva Weed as Senate leader. And just this week Paiva Weed’s powerful No. 2, Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio, co-sponsored a constitutional amendment [pdf] to ban same-sex marriage being pushed by influential Providence Sen. Frank Ciccone, another Democrat.

McCaffrey, who fought off a tough primary challenge from a same-sex supporter last year, says he won’t hold hearings until “sometime in the spring,” telling The Journal: “Obviously, there are more important things than gay marriage to worry about in the state of Rhode Island right now.”

Still, the pressure on Senate leadership to pass same-sex marriage will only grow in the coming years – and their opposition could eventually become a political problem for liberal lawmakers like Cranston Sen. Joshua Miller and Providence Sen. Gayle Goldin, who’ll have to explain to activists in their districts why they empower a leadership team on Smith Hill that blocks a policy which is quickly becoming a core Democratic priority.

​More Nesi’s Notes coverage of Rhode Island’s same-sex marriage debate:

• No guarantee key RI Senate panel will OK same-sex marriage (Dec. 17)
• 2013 could be a big year for same-sex marriage in Rhode Island (Dec. 11)
• Leading gay-marriage opponent Schubert preps for fight in RI (Oct. 10)
• Fox: Gay marriage vote still set for 2013 despite Senate losses (Sept. 12)
• Gay marriage group snubs Kelly despite Jabour’s opposition (Sept. 8)
• Rhoda Perry: McCaffrey is ‘hurtful, inaccurate’ on gay marriage (Aug. 17)
• Is the Rhode Island Senate warming up to same-sex marriage? (May 10)

​(photo: Ted Nesi/WPRI)

The Public Policy Polling survey of 520 Rhode Island voters finds 70% want Reed and Whitehouse to vote in favor of changing the Senate rules “so as to reduce gridlock.” The survey was commissioned by Fix the Senate Now.

Whitehouse has been a staunch advocate along with other younger senators in favor of changing the chamber’s rules to make it harder for Republicans to block legislation. Reed has been more cautious, voting against the proposal last year and taking a wait-and-see approach as momentum grows for another vote in January.

The poll shows 81% of Rhode Island voters think the U.S. Senate does not deal “with important issues facing the country in a timely manner.” Asked about specific changes, 79% said nominees for the judiciary should get an up-or-down vote; 77% said senators should have to keep debating on the floor during a filibuster; and 68% said senators should only be able to filibuster each bill once.

Senator Reed’s spokesman Chip Unruh noted Thursday that there is no formal Democratic proposal for rules changes on the table yet. He said Reed has spoken with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about the issue.

Greg Sargent, the plugged-in liberal Washington Post journalist, suggested Thursday that Whitehouse and his allies may fail in their latest push. “Real filibuster reform is anything but a sure thing,” he wrote. “It may even be at risk as we speak.”

Public Policy Polling is a Democratic-affiliated firm in Raleigh, N.C., that received high marks for the accuracy of its election polls this year. The automated telephone survey of 520 Rhode Island voters was conducted Dec. 10-11. Full results are here.

So who are those 8%?

“With the undecided voters, there’s no one group where they’re from,” said WPRI 12 political analyst and pollster Joe Fleming after the two of us examined the data from our Oct. 24-27 survey of 300 likely voters. (The margin of error is plus or minus 5.66 points, and larger for subgroups, so caveat emptor.)

One characteristic that does stick out: 11% of women are undecided, compared with only 6% of men. “That could be good for Cicilline because he’s winning that group,” Fleming said. On the other hand, by definition these are women who haven’t been convinced by the Democrat’s pitch so far.

Other than that, the undecideds are a highly heterogeneous group.

Between 8% and 9% of voters in each of the poll’s three age groups – young voters (18 to 39), middle-aged voters (40 to 59) and older voters (60 or older) – are undecided. The group includes 8% of independents, 8% of Democrats and 4% of Republicans.

These Rhode Islanders may be more hesitant than the average citizen to make up their minds: 18% of voters who haven’t decided between Obama and Romney for president also haven’t decided who to support for Congress, compared with only 9% Obama voters and just 4% of Romney voters.

Both side will be spending the final days of the campaign trying to present a message that pushes these voters in one direction or the other – and hope that, if the undecideds break heavily in one direction, they can make up for it with a solid ground game.

• Related: Poll: Cicilline clings to 1-point lead over Doherty (Oct. 30)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – President Obama continues to hold a commanding lead over Mitt Romney in Rhode Island with six days to go before voters head to the polls, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Wednesday night.

Read the rest of this story »

• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results breakdown

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Gov. Lincoln Chafee faces a decidedly uphill battle if he opts to run for a second term in two years, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Wednesday night.

The survey of 601 likely voters also finds nearly two-thirds of Rhode Islanders think the state is unfriendly to business but three in five are satisfied with the quality of their local school district.

Read the rest of this story »

Coming up at 11 p.m.: Obama vs. Romney in Rhode Island

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Incumbent Democrats U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Jim Langevin still hold sizable leads over their Republican challengers just a week before Election Day, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Tuesday night.

Read the rest of this story »

• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results breakdown

Coming on Tuesday: Obama vs. Romney; Chafee for re-election; schools, business climate

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Democratic Congressman David Cicilline is clinging to a wafer-thin lead over Republican challenger Brendan Doherty with just a week to go before voters head to the polls, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Tuesday night.

Read the rest of this story »

• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results breakdown

Coming up at 11 p.m.: Whitehouse vs. Hinckley, Langevin vs. Riley.

What better time for a new WPRI 12 poll? Our new survey of 600 likely voters in Rhode Island will be released starting at 6 p.m. tonight with brand-new findings on who’s ahead in the hotly contested 1st Congressional District race between Congressman David Cicilline and challenger Brendan Doherty.

We’ll also have new poll results for president (Obama vs. Romney), U.S. Senate (Whitehouse vs. Hinckley) and the 2nd Congressional District (Langevin vs. Riley vs. Collins). And we’ll share the results of three other questions testing Rhode Islanders’ opinions on the state’s business climate, its K-12 education system and whether Lincoln Chafee deserves a second term as governor.

Check back at 6 p.m. for the first round of results here on WPRI.com and live on WPRI 12.

A survey commissioned by the Republican’s campaign and released Saturday afternoon shows Doherty at 45%, Cicilline at 39% and independent David Vogel at 6%, with 11% of voters undecided. The telephone interview poll of 400 likely voters was conducted Wednesday and Thursday. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.9 percentage points.

The poll was conducted by OnMessage Inc., a GOP consulting firm employed by Doherty’s campaign that previously worked for former Gov. Donald Carcieri. The question is whether it’s accurate. The OnMessage poll’s findings are far from outside the realm of possibility, but there are two reasons to be somewhat skeptical.

First, the firm didn’t release the party affiliation of its voting sample, which is a concern because its Sept. 13-14 poll may have interviewed too few Democrats to accurately capture the district. Second, the poll shows Mitt Romney winning 34% of the vote in the 1st District, which is 7 points better than his showing in the Sept. 26-29 WPRI 12 poll. It’s possible Romney has seen a significant bounce in the staunchly Democratic district over the last month, but far from certain.

The picture should become clearer when the new WPRI 12 poll is released next week. Roll Call’s Joshua Miller has more on the OnMessage survey. Separately on Saturday, Cicilline’s campaign sent out a recorded phone call with Bill Clinton endorsing Cicilline to 50,000 voters in the district. Listen here.

• Related: GOP to spend $280K on TV push (Oct. 26) | Dems counter GOP with $315K ad buy (Oct. 26)

The survey results combine findings from two groups of interviews conducted almost a week apart, the first done from Sept. 26 to 29 and the second done from Oct. 4 to 5, according to Marion Orr, the professor who oversees Brown’s polling. “We did two consecutive sets of days,” Orr told WPRI.com.

Asked whether the poll included cell phones as well as landlines, Orr said the call list was created using phone numbers that some Rhode Islanders voluntarily write down on the official voter registration forms they file with the secretary of state’s office.

A breakdown provided by Brown shows the 496 survey respondents identified themselves as 45% independents, 37% Democrats and 10% Republicans, with an additional 6% of voters classified as “other” and 3% who didn’t know or didn’t say. As a comparison, the 501 voters surveyed in last week’s WPRI 12 poll were 40% independents, 41% Democrats and 17% Republicans, with another 2% who refused to say.

The Brown poll’s gender breakdown was 50.2% female and 49.8% male, and its age breakdown was 10% under 30; 18% ages 30 to 44; 31% ages 45 to 60; 28% ages 61 to 74; and 11% ages 75 and older. Orr said the university trains and pays undergraduate and graduate students to conduct the survey interviews.

• Related: Cicilline leads by 6 points in new Brown poll; Republicans trail (Oct. 10)

This post has been expanded.

A Brown University survey released Wednesday morning shows Cicilline at 46%, Doherty at 40% and independent David Vogel at 7%, with another 7% of voters undecided. Brown’s findings mirror the results of last week’s WPRI 12 poll, which showed Cicilline at 44% and Doherty at 38%.

The survey also shows Democratic Congressman Jim Langevin ahead by 18 points in the 2nd District. Langevin is at 49%, Republican Michael Riley is at 32% and independent Abel Collins is at 5%, with 14% undecided. Incumbent Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse has a 29-point lead for U.S. Senate, with Whitehouse at 59%, Republican Barry Hinckley at 30% and 12% of voters still undecided.

Brown said the telephone survey of 496 registered Rhode Island voters was conducted over 10 days, from Sept. 26 to Oct. 5, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points on statewide questions. Brown said the survey sample for the races included 236 likely voters in the 1st Congressional District and 235 likely voters in the 2nd District, with a 6.3-point margin of error for district-only questions.

The poll contains good news for most of Rhode Island’s leaders, with job approval ratings improving since February for all of them except Langevin, whose approval fell from 47% to 41%, and House Speaker Gordon Fox, whose approval fell from 26% to 18%, which makes Fox the state’s least popular politician.

Approval ratings spiked the most for Whitehouse, who jumped from 30% in February to 45%; Cicilline, who went from 15% to 30%; President Obama, who improved from 40% to 55%; and U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, who rose from 47% to 59%. Governor Chafee’s approval rating is a dismal 29%, though that’s up from 22%.

The most popular politician in the Brown poll is Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, who recorded a stellar 66% approval rating statewide, up from 60% in February. Behind him is Treasurer Gina Raimondo, whose 59% approval rating was basically unchanged since last winter.

The survey also found higher approval ratings for Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts (38%), Attorney General Peter Kilmartin (36%) and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed (26%). Secretary of State Ralph Mollis’s approval rating was unchanged from February at 29%, the same as Chafee’s.

In the presidential race, the Brown poll shows Barack Obama at 58% and Mitt Romney at 32% in Rhode Island, with 10% of voters undecided. The survey also finds 77% of voters disagree with the Cranston schools’ recent decision to effectively ban father-daughter dances in the district.

Rhode Islanders remain deeply dissatisfied with the state’s economy, which has been struggling with double-digit unemployment for three and a half years: 93% of voters described Rhode Island’s economy as poor or not so good, while 81% said the same about the U.S. economy. They felt better about their own personal situations, with only 38% of voters describing their personal finances as poor or not so good.

In addition, 61% of voters say Rhode Island is on the wrong track against 16% who say the state is heading in the right direction; 55% approve of Obama’s handling of the economy; and more than half say they’ll vote to allow table games at the state’s two gaming facilities.

• Related: A closer look at the methodology of the Brown University poll (Oct. 10)

Breaking from two decades of tradition, this year’s election exit poll is set to include surveys of voters in 31 states, not all 50 as it has for the past five presidential elections, according to multiple people involved in the planning.

Dan Merkle, director of elections for ABC News, and a member of the consortium that runs the exit poll, confirmed the shift Wednesday. The aim, he said, “is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states,” in the face of mounting survey costs.

The decision by the National Election Pool — a joint venture of the major television networks and The Associated Press — is sure to cause some pain to election watchers across the country. …

Here is a list of the states that will be excluded from coverage: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Comparing this list with the election map, reveals how carefully the exit poll planners allocated resources. All 19 of the states with no exit polls are classified as either “solid Obama” or “solid Romney,” and there is only one “toss-up” gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race not on the list: the competitive North Dakota match-up of Heidi Heitkamp and Rick Berg.

Nesi’s Notes will be draped in black on Election Day.

Lincoln Chafee was a Republican as recently as 2007, then won the governor’s office in 2010 as an independent. But the new WPRI 12 poll shows he actually gets his strongest support from Democrats, 43% of whom rate Chafee’s job performance as excellent or good. That’s 14 points higher than his approval rating among all voters.

Chafee has downplayed suggestions he may join the Democratic Party ahead of the 2014 election, though he’s acknowledged it’s more difficult than he expected to govern without a party base. At the same time, Chafee is supporting Democrats up and down the ticket this fall and even spoke at the party’s national convention as a co-chair of President Obama’s re-election campaign.

By contrast, the two Democrats who get mentioned most frequently as the party’s top prospects for 2014 – Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras, tied as the most popular politicians in Rhode Island – actually do better among Republicans than members of their own party (though not by much). Raimondo’s approval rating is 65% among Republicans and 59% among Democrats. Taveras’s ratings are closer: 61% among Republicans and 59% among Democrats.

Indeed, it’s striking how close their approval ratings are throughout the poll of 501 likely voters – they’re exactly tied at 57.9% statewide and exactly tied at 59.3% among Democrats. Raimondo’s approval rating among union households is slightly higher than Taveras’s, but Taveras has a bit more room to grow since fewer voters have a negative opinion of him and more don’t know him at all.

That crossover appeal could be a boon to Raimondo and Taveras if they can maintain it going forward. Of course, only one of them can be the Democratic nominee in two years, which has the pair on a collision course. And they already have at least one other opponent: former Auditor General Ernie Almonte.

That means the real contest between Raimondo and Taveras could be the 2014 Democratic primary. She starts with a huge financial advantage, but Taveras may have the edge among the party’s three L’s: labor, Latinos and liberals.

Both pols played coy Tuesday when my WPRI 12 colleague Sean Daly asked if they’ll run.

“You know, someone asks me about it every day; a lot of people are encouraging me to do it,” Raimondo said. “It’s more than two years away and I have a lot of work to do as treasurer so that’s what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t hear a no,” Daly pointed out. “You didn’t hear a yes, you didn’t hear a no,” Raimondo replied, smiling. “You heard me say I’m working very hard for the people as treasurer.”

Taveras sounded a similar note: “I think the mistake that a lot of politicians make is they start looking too far ahead and lose focus on what’s in front of them, and I don’t want to make that mistake,” he said. “I need to focus on being mayor of the city.”

“I didn’t hear a no,” Daly said again. “I’m focused on being mayor,” Taveras replied – then grinned and laughed. Their allies are less circumspect, privately talking up each candidate’s potential.

None of this is to say Taveras, 42, or Raimondo, 41, is a sure thing in the 2014 primary, let alone in the general election against – potentially – Republican, Moderate and independent candidates.

Not only is the election two years away, but there are plenty of wild cards: Congressman Cicilline could lose to Brendan Doherty, creating an opening for one of them to challenge Doherty in 2014; Chafee could get a cabinet job from Obama, making Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts acting governor and likely a candidate in ’14; Senator Reed could retire or get a cabinet post (though this is far less likely than many think); Senator Whitehouse could get put on the Supreme Court.

All things considered, though, Raimondo and Taveras are well-positioned for the future.

• Related: New WPRI 12 Poll: Chafee rating 29%; Raimondo, Taveras 58% (Oct. 2)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – More than half of Rhode Islanders disapprove of how Governor Chafee handled the collapse of Curt Schilling’s game company, offering evidence the issue may not be a political winner for the beleaguered independent, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Tuesday night.

“I can pledge to the Rhode Island citizens that they’re going to have a better Rhode Island through my tenure in office,” Chafee told WPRI.com. “All I know is I’m working hard every day, and good times are ahead.”

Read the rest of this story »

• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s approval rating remains dismal nearly halfway through his first term, while his potential 2014 rivals Treasurer Gina Raimondo and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras are widely popular, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Tuesday evening.

The survey also shows Barack Obama with a 24-point lead over Mitt Romney in Rhode Island.

Read the rest of this story »

• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results

Coming up at 11 p.m.: Chafee’s handling of 38 Studios; casino gambling.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Jim Langevin both hold commanding leads over their little-known Republican challengers with five weeks to go before the election, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Monday evening.

Read the rest of this story »

• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results

Coming on Tuesday: Obama vs. Romney, approval ratings for Chafee, Reed, Raimondo, Taveras.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Congressman David Cicilline has engineered a remarkable eight-month turnaround in his re-election race against Brendan Doherty, rebounding from a 15-point deficit to take a six-point lead, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Monday evening.

Read the rest of this story »

• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results

Coming up at 11 p.m.: Whitehouse vs. Hinckley, Langevin vs. Riley.

• Cicilline vs. Doherty. Are the Democrats’ polls right, or not? That’s the big question on this one. The February WPRI 12 poll gave Doherty a 15-point lead; even Republicans say the race has tightened since then, but they remain skeptical it’s moved so much that Cicilline now has the advantage. Which voters are returning to the Cicilline fold after deserting him in February? And what impact is independent David Vogel having – does he take votes from one or both of the top contenders? (Monday at 6)

• Approval ratings. There’s Cicilline, of course, but we asked about a long list of others too – Obama, Chafee, Reed, Whitehouse, Langevin, Raimondo and Taveras. Chafee’s approval rating was a dismal 21% in February; has he made any progress since then? What about Cicilline, who was at 20%? Is Obama’s national improvement showing up in Rhode Island? And with an eye on the 2014 gubernatorial race, how do voters feel about Raimondo and Taveras? (Monday and Tuesday)

• Chafee and 38 Studios. One question I stuck into the poll will test whether voters think Governor Chafee did a good job handling the collapse of Curt Schilling’s video game company last spring. It’s been suggested the 38 Studios fiasco could help Chafee rebuild his public standing, since he opposed the deal in the first place and refused to risk more taxpayer money on it last May. Still, the company collapsed and $100 million is owed. What do voters think of the governor’s decisions? (Tuesday at 11)

• Same-sex marriage. House Speaker Gordon Fox announced on Newsmakers he’ll call a vote early next session on legalizing same-sex marriage in Rhode Island, but Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed remains opposed. The question hasn’t been polled since Public Policy Polling’s February 2011 survey, which found 50% of Rhode Islanders in favor and 41% opposed. What do voters think of the idea now? (Monday at 6)

• Throw the bums out? The question itself says it all: “If there were a place on the ballot that allowed you to defeat and replace every single member of the General Assembly, including your own representative, would you?” When the NBC/WSJ pollsters asked the same question about Congress last January, 56% of Americans said they’d toss out every congressman and senator. Would Rhode Islanders do the same with their oft-criticized state lawmakers? (Monday at 6)

• Related: Doherty hits Cicilline in new ad on eve of poll as race tightens (Oct. 1)

Taveras’s approval rating is 60% among city voters, up from 47% a year ago, according to the new poll. The mayor’s fellow Democrat President Obama is even more popular, with a 68% approval rating in Providence. The telephone survey of 425 registered city voters was conducted Sept. 13 to 22 by Brown’s Taubman Center. Its overall margin of error is plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.

Taveras is doing significantly better than his predecessor David Cicilline was toward the end of the previous mayor’s second term. Cicilline’s approval rating was 41% in Brown’s September 2009 poll of city voters, down from 62% in an October 2006 survey.

Providence voters remain concerned about the city’s finances, with 86% characterizing its budget problems as serious or very serious, basically unchanged from a year ago. On pensions, nearly two-thirds of voters said they were aware of the issue. About the same share said retirees, current workers and future workers should share the burden of fixing the problem and also that city employees should switch to a 401k-style plan.

Other ideas were less popular: raising the retirement age (46% support, 44% oppose); raising health insurance co-pays (42% support, 46% oppose); eliminating cost-of-living adjustments (49% support, 35% oppose). As for the pension deal Taveras and retirees struck last spring, 45% of voters were satisfied with it and 21% were dissatisfied, while 24% chose neither option.

Providence’s economy remains a concern, with 82% of voters calling it not so good or poor. Voters were split on the city’s overall direction, with 38% saying it’s going in the right direction and 37% saying it’s off on the wrong track. Only 23% of voters said their families are better off financially now than they were a year ago.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has released two polls since last Tuesday’s primary showing the congressman ahead of Republican Brendan Doherty. Cicilline’s campaign followed up Thursday with a survey from his longtime pollster The Feldman Group giving him a 10-point edge, with Cicilline at 46%, Doherty at 36%, independent David Vogel at 7% and 11% undecided.

All three of the polls were commissioned by Cicilline or his party and in each case the full results were withheld; Republicans haven’t released any internal polling of their own to counter the Democrats.

Cicilline is also getting a boost from a neutral analyst: his chances of keeping his seat were upgraded Thursday by the Sabato Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, whose director is the prominent political prognosticator Larry Sabato.

The 1st District was moved from “Toss-Up” to “Leans Democratic” after just two months. “While he’s not well-liked because of his time as mayor of Providence, Democrats – especially in much of New England – appear to be strongly coalescing around their president and their party,” writes Kyle Kondik, the center’s U.S. House editor. “That should be enough to get Cicilline across the finish line, so we’re moving him to leans Democratic.”

Voters in Rhode Island’s redrawn 1st Congressional District voted 67% for Barack Obama and only 32% for John McCain in 2008, according to data compiled by Daily Kos Elections. The Cook Political Report rates Cicilline’s seat a toss-up and Stuart Rothenberg rated it “Toss-Up/Tilt Democrat” in May.

Doherty’s campaign has dismissed the various Democratic polls, noting Cicilline still isn’t winning half of voters even in his own surveys. “The fact that Cicilline can’t win 50% of the vote under those circumstances in an overwhelmingly Democratic district shows just how little people trust him,” campaign manager Ian Prior said in a statement Wednesday.

The Cicilline-commissioned Feldman Group poll was conducted Sept. 13 and 15-17 and surveyed 500 voters “who participated in the 2008 or 2010 general elections, or who had registered since that time” and are likely to vote in November. No margin of error was provided. The sample was 47% Democrats, 9% Republicans and 44% unaffiliated; Feldman said it surveyed the head-to-head matchup before providing more information.

• Related: Doherty campaign dismisses 2 Dem polls with Cicilline ahead (Sept. 19)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – More than half of Anthony Gemma’s supporters will desert the Democratic Party and vote for Republican Brendan Doherty if incumbent David Cicilline is the party’s congressional candidate, an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Monday night shows.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: New WPRI 12 Poll: Cicilline 43%, Gemma 31%, undecided 17% (Aug. 27)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Anthony Gemma is losing ground in his Democratic primary campaign against Congressman David Cicilline, as nearly half of likely voters are still unfamiliar with the two-time candidate, an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Monday evening shows.

Read the rest of this story »

The president’s approval rating in Rhode Island jumped to 58% during the first half of this year, according to a new Gallup poll released Wednesday.

That’s up from Obama’s 49% approval rating here in 2011 but below the 67% he scored in 2009. His disapproval rating was 32%, down from 39% last year, according to Gallup.

The only state that gave Obama higher marks than Rhode Island this year was his birthplace of Hawaii, where his approval rating stood at 63%. They are among just 13 states where a majority of voters approved of the president’s job performance. His approval rating was 55% in Massachusetts but only 26% in Utah.

Gallup surveyed 323 Rhode Islanders by telephone between Jan. 1 and June 30. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 to 8 percentage points depending on the state. In Rhode Island 10% of those surveyed told Gallup they had no opinion on the president’s job performance, more than in most states.

The new poll offers fresh evidence that Republican Mitt Romney stands next to no chance of winning Rhode Island in November. The state’s voters haven’t backed a Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984. A strong showing by Obama in November could also help endangered Democratic Congressman David Cicilline.

Obama won a smashing victory in Rhode Island in 2008, taking 63% of the vote against Republican John McCain’s 35%. It was the state’s largest presidential landslide since 1968, when Democrat Hubert Humphrey won 64% of Rhode Islanders’ votes against just 32% for Republican Richard Nixon.

• Related: Study: RI’s swing voters make it ‘most elastic state’ in the US (June 21)

By Tim White

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Congressman David Cicilline’s recent apology for calling Providence’s finances “excellent” in 2010 will have little impact on Democratic primary voters when they head to the polls in September, an exclusive WPRI 12 poll reveals.

Read the rest of this story »

• Related: New WPRI 12 Poll: Cicilline 40%, Gemma 36% (May 16)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Congressman David Cicilline holds a slim lead over his Democratic primary opponent Anthony Gemma with less than four months to go before voters will decide which man should face Republican Brendan Doherty, an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Wednesday evening shows.

Read the rest of this story »