Lieberman losing ground in Senate race

26 minutes ago

HAMDEN, Conn. - Sen. Joe Lieberman, under fire from activists in his own party, has lost ground to his challenger and is narrowly trailing him for the first time in their race for the Democratic nomination, a new poll released Thursday shows.

Businessman Ned Lamont had support from 51 percent and Lieberman from 47 percent of likely Democratic voters in the latest Quinnipiac University poll — a slight Lamont lead given the survey's sampling error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Lieberman had led in a Quinnipiac poll last month, 55 percent to 40 percent.The new poll suggests that Lieberman still could win a fourth term, even if he loses the Democratic primary Aug. 8, however.Lieberman filed papers last week that will allow him to petition his way onto the November ballot.

The poll found that among all registered Connecticut voters surveyed, including non-Democrats, Lieberman had the support of 51 percent, followed by Lamont with 27 percent and Republican Alan Schlesinger with 9 percent.

The telephone survey of 2,502 registered voters, 653 of them likely Democratic voters, was conducted July 13-18. The margin of error for the overall survey was plus or minus 2 percentage points.Lamont, a multimillionaire and founder of a cable television company that has wired college campuses, has gained national attention in his challenge to Lieberman.

Liberal blogs have built Lamont up while taking shots at Lieberman for his support of theIraq war and other moves perceived to support for congressional Republicans and Bush."We think the voters of Connecticut are continuing to realize that Ned represents the kind of change they want in Washington," said Lamont campaign spokeswoman Liz Dupont-Diehl.

"It's clear that Joe Lieberman is just interested in hanging on to power."Lieberman campaign spokeswoman Marion Steinfels said the poll simply shows that the race is "competitive."

Link Here

Bill Clinton stumpsfor Joe Lieberman

HARTFORD, Conn. -- One of the Democratic Party's biggest guns, former President Bill Clinton, is coming to Connecticut to campaign for Senator Joe Lieberman.

Clinton's visit, planned for July 24 in Waterbury, comes as a new Quinnpiac Poll shows Lieberman and his Democratic primary challenger, businessman Ned Lamont, in a statistical dead heat.
Lieberman's campaign has not yet revealed details of the planned visit.

The two politicians have known each other since Clinton worked on Lieberman's first campaign for state Senate in 1970.

Clinton was a student at Yale University at the time. Clinton recently defended Lieberman's position on the war in Iraq, saying he agreed with Lieberman that the US should not set a strict timetable for withdrawing soldiers.

Clinton also said he thought it was wrong for Democrats to challenge one of their own.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)