Rival Democrat Helena Foulkes leads Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee by 16 points in a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released Tuesday.
The poll found that 34% of likely Democratic primary voters prefer Foulkes, 18% say they would vote for McKee, 4% favor restaurant owner Greg Stevens, 3% want a different candidate.
The poll suggests that the campaign for the September primary is still in its nascent stages, though. The biggest slice of respondents – 40% – remains undecided.
About 40% of Rhode Island voters are registered as Democrats, so the Democratic primary on Sept. 8 will likely have an outsized influence in deciding the race for governor this year.
McKee’s campaign criticized the poll findings as unreliable, arguing that UNH’s sample included too few older voters and too many younger voters.
While independents can vote in a primary, McKee supporters point to how the AFL-CIO poll showed a 53% favorability rating for the 74-year-old governor among Democrats, with 50% of Democrats saying they would vote to re-elect him.
However, the findings continue a streak of polls that generally indicate a challenging climb to re-election for McKee – including one commissioned by the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and released Monday.
The 16-point gap between Foulkes and McKee in UNH’s February poll is similar to an 18-point gap the university’s Rhode Island poll found in November.
Tuesday’s poll also found that McKee’s favorability fell to 17% among likely Democratic primary voters, while 59% have an unfavorable view.
The survey is based on online responses earlier this month from 703 Rhode Islanders, although fewer responses were used for some questions. The overall margin of error is 3.7 percentage points, while Democratic primary questions have a 5.1 percentage point margin of error and the comparable figure for GOP primary questions is 8.4 percentage points.
Prompted by a 2024 story by Ocean State Media, UNH asked respondents about a possible effort by former Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo to return to that office.
More than twice as many respondents (44%) said they do not want Raimondo to run for governor, compared with the amount who do (20%). Raimondo has shown no recent interest in pursuing a return to the Statehouse and she is considered a possible candidate for president.
The poll shows 62% of GOP voters favorable to another bid for governor by Republican Ashley Kalus, who was soundly defeated by McKee in 2022, with 8% opposing it.
Kalus, who has not made any public moves indicating another run for office, has a higher favorability rating (30%) in the poll than the three Republicans who are running for governor: Aaron Guckian (12%/63% unknown), Elaine Pelino (21%/60%) and Robert Raimondo (6%/60%).
Asked about the top problem in Rhode Island, poll respondents’ top choices were housing (18%) and cost of living (12%), with corrupt/incompetent government and jobs/economy tied (11%).
The UNH poll found that 42% of Rhode Islanders oppose McKee’s budget proposal to extend from 2030 to 2050 the deadline for requiring utility companies to use renewable energy to create their energy. Extending the deadline is supported by 32%.
The survey indicates that McKee’s proposal to impose an additional 3 percentage points for annual income over $1 million, to be “largely popular,” with 65% of respondents supporting it and 27% opposing it.
Also popular: McKee’s proposal to phase out state taxes on Social Security income, with 79% backing that and 9% in opposition.
