With Election Too Close to Call, Lamont, Stefanowski and Griebel Make Last-Gasp Appeals To Voters

Nov. 04--Two days from Election Day, a margin so slender no pollster can conclusively divine a front-runner, the three major candidates for governor fanned out again on Sunday to solidify their bases and try to win over a dwindling number of undecided voters.

Republicans and Democrats had scheduled large rallies Sunday afternoon for their final get-out-the-vote messages.

Standing alongside his family and running mate Susan Bysiewicz in Bushnell Park early Sunday afternoon, Ned Lamont reiterated his campaign pledge to expand healthcare access and, as he has sought to do time and again, styled himself as a firewall against President Donald J. Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Connecticut. He ripped Stefanowski for waving off questions about gay marriage and abortion as "settled law," saying, "There's nothing [that's] 'settled law' in the age of Trump."

Lamont and Bysiewicz predicted strong voter turnout in their favor, not just in urban Democratic strongholds but in suburbs and small towns that have traditionally leaned Republican as well. Suburban aversion to Trump, especially among suburban women, has energized Democrats and turned off Republicans in Fairfield County, Lamont said.

Recent polls offer different predictions: One poll released Nov. 1 gave Stefanowski a 2.4 percentage-point lead over Lamont, with petitioning candidate Oz Griebel trailing by more than 30 points. But another poll, released the following day, estimated Lamont held a nine-point lead over Stefanowski, with Griebel still at nine percent. About 1 in 10 voters are still undecided.

What the surveys show conclusively is this: The race for governor is too close to call with the gap between Lamont and Stefanowski far narrower than the 13-point lead Lamont commanded after his primary victory. Stefanowski's slender lead in the Nov. 1 poll is within the four-point margin of error. In a recent Quinnipiac University poll that found Lamont ahead, the margin of error also eclipsed his lead.

After meeting Griebel at a West Hartford bagel shop, Rob and Joan Claflin were impressed by his grasp of the state's fiscal predicament. The Claflins' biggest concerns are a rising cost of living and outmigration, both of people and of companies. Rob Claflin, an independent, supports some of Griebel's proposed remedies -- tolls, for one thing, to replenish the state's transportation fund.

"As far as policy," Claflin said, "he's the most knowledgeable."

But there are the poll numbers: Although some show Griebel and running mate Monte Frank in double digits, even the most favorable surveys show them trailing the frontrunner by 30 points. The Claflins are grappling with casting votes for a candidate lagging so far behind.

The only poll that showed Stefanowski in the lead was the Sacred Heart University/Hearst Connecticut Media survey that had the Republican ahead by 2.4 percentage points.

John McLaughlin, a nationally known pollster and political strategist who worked for Donald Trump in 2016 and now polls for Stefanowski, said the Gravis Marketing survey that showed Lamont up by 9 points did not have the same methodology as the Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart, and internal Stefanowski polls that were done by live interviewers and showed a much closer race within the margin of error.

In the final days, television viewers have been blitzed by a relentless barrage of commercials for both Lamont and Stefanowski. Griebel, by contrast, has a much smaller budget than his multi-millionaire opponents and has had little presence on television. Griebel's spokesman said his commercials can be pushed to less prominent times on television because the campaign cannot afford the more costly, "non-pre-emptible rate" that the well-heeled campaigns can pay -- that guarantees them the TV spots that they want.

Regardless of political party, the candidates say that enthusiasm is high -- as shown by the all-time high of 2.16 million registered voters in Connecticut. Some Democrats are energized by their opposition to President Donald J. Trump, while some Republicans are fired up by their antipathy to Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and two of the largest tax increases in state history that have been passed during the last eight years.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, campaigning for Democrats in Simsbury on the final weekend, said that turnout will be the key on Tuesday.

"I am not on the ballot this year, but I feel like I am on the ballot," Blumenthal said. "Literally, our democracy is on the ballot. Healthcare is on the ballot. The rule of law is on the ballot. Women's healthcare, reproductive rights are on the ballot. Environmental rights, consumers' rights, workers' rights. They're all on the ballot. The nation is watching Connecticut."

This story will be updated later in the evening.

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