Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee and Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea are in a statistical dead heat in the Democratic race for governor, with more than a fifth of voters still undecided, according to a new poll from WPRI-TV, Channel 12.
McKee’s lead over Gorbea — 28% to 25% — is within the 4.9 percentage point margin of error for the poll.
With less than a month until the Sept. 13 primary, 21% of voters remain unsure of their choice for the state’s top job. And almost half, 42%, say they are open to changing their mind about their pick.
The results track earlier polls by WPRI and The Boston Globe that show McKee and Gorbea leading the field, and former CVS Health executive Helena Buonanno Foulkes trailing a bit behind. The latest WPRI poll shows her with 14% of the support. She had 16% in a Globe poll.
Two other Democrats, community activists Matt Brown and Luis Daniel Muñoz, continue to poll in the single digits, Brown with 8% and Muñoz with 1%.
WPRI pollster Joe Fleming said he expects the candidates for governor to get more aggressive in the waning weeks of the primary and that there’s still time for the race to change.
Fleming said independent expenditure groups, which support particular candidates while operating independently of them, may take the lead in launching a fusillade of negative ads on television.
While some candidates may start to go negative, he said, “the problem with negative at this point is if candidate A goes after candidate B, candidate B may lose votes, but candidate A may not get them, because candidate C, D, and E is a possibility of getting those votes.”
The WPRI poll shows McKee to have the best approval rating among the Democratic candidates for governor, with 53% of respondents saying they have a very or somewhat favorable view of him, compared with 46% for Gorbea and 33% for Foulkes.
The poll also showed Seth Magaziner continuing to lead the Democratic side of the race in Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, with 37% of the support (with an equal percentage undecided), 8% each for David Segal and Sarah Morgenthau, 4% for Joy Fox, 3% for Omar Bah, and 1% for Spender Dickinson. The CD2 finding has a 6.2 percentage point margin of effort.
In the race for the lieutenant governor seat held by Sabina Matos, the poll finds Matos leading two Democratic rivals, with 23% of the support, compared with 14% for state Rep. Deb Ruggiero of Jamestown, and 9% for state Sen. Cynthia Mendes of East Providence. Yet 51% of voters are still undecided.
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis@ripr.org.
