Poll numbers released by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee show the congressman with a potential 20-percentage point lead over the Republican senator.

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 19, 2005

BY SCOTT MacKAY
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- A public opinion survey commissioned by U.S. Senate Democrats shows Republican incumbent Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee to be vulnerable to a Democratic challenge in 2006, especially if the candidate is U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin, of Warwick.

The poll numbers released yesterday by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee show Langevin with 52 percent, Chafee at 32 percent and 17 percent undecided, said Cara Morris, spokeswoman for the committee.

The survey was done by Mark Mellman, a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic pollster who is familiar with Rhode Island politics. The poll of 500 registered voters was done from Jan. 11-13, Morris said. (The numbers do not equal 100 because of arithmetic rounding.)

Mellman asked this question: "If the November 2006 election were held today and the candidates were James Langevin and Lincoln Chafee, who would you vote for?"

The poll also tested two other Democrats who have expressed an interest in running against Chafee -- Secretary of State Matthew Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse, the former attorney general. The Democratic committee refused to release those numbers, but party sources -- and Chafee's staff -- said those results showed the senator with a big lead over Whitehouse and an even larger margin over Brown.

Leading Democrats said the result shows that Chafee's popularity is on the wane, but Chafee spokesman Steve Hourahan said the results should be viewed with skepticism, noting that the Democrats declined to release any more than one question on a multiquestion survey. Political analysts usually want to see all the questions in a poll before vouching for its accuracy.

"It is bizarre," said Hourahan. "We think it is just the internal politics of the Democratic Party; they want to clear the field to make sure they don't have a primary."

"I don't put much credence in it," Hourahan said. No Democrat would confirm specific numbers on the Brown and Whitehouse trial runs against Chafee, but Hourahan said Washington inside conventional wisdom had Chafee over Whitehouse by 17 points and ahead of Brown by 24.

"That doesn't make any sense," said Hourahan, referring to the wide swing between the Langevin-Chafee results and the Brown-Chafee and Whitehouse-Chafee numbers.

William Lynch, state Democratic chairman, said the poll buoys Democratic hopes of picking up a GOP seat in this most Democratic of states in national elections.

"Chafee's support has eroded over the last couple of years, including his Republican base," Lynch said. "And Jimmy Langevin has established himself as a reliable national political figure. He is somebody who has really come into his own and is a leader in Washington on such issues as health care and stem-cell research."

The release of the poll result also shows how the Democratic establishment, in less-than-subtle fashion, is coalescing behind Langevin. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed is known to look with favor upon a Langevin candidacy and national Democratic activists believe Langevin would give Chafee the toughest challenge of any Democrat who has expressed interest in making the run.

Whitehouse, for his part, had this to say last night: "If Jim Langevin wants to run for the Senate, he has my support."

Darrell West, Brown University political science professor and pollster, questions the bulge given to Langevin over Chafee in the survey because Brown polls for the past two years have given Langevin and Chafee roughly equal job favorability results; both Langevin and Chafee usually score in the mid-50 percentage range.

Yet, West says, Langevin, 40, who was reelected overwhelmingly to a third term against token GOP opposition in November, would be an attractive candidate. He has a base in Warwick, where Chafee once served as mayor, and as a paralyzed elected official who uses a wheelchair, he has a personal story that has resonated with voters.

Langevin was in a Warwick police cadet program as a teenager when he was accidentally shot by a police officer. The accident caused him life-threatening injuries, but did not deter him from pursuing a political career that includes stints as a state representative, Rhode Island secretary of state and in the U.S. House.

"He has a compelling personal story, he is a moderate . . . and he has a Warwick base," West said. "That makes him a strong candidate."

Chafee, 51, is the scion of one of Rhode Island's storied Yankee families; his father was the late Sen. John H. Chafee. He and his father are the only two Republicans to represent Rhode Island in the Senate since the Depression.

Chafee also is well-regarded in Warwick, where he was also a City Council member before becoming mayor. He defeated former U.S. Rep. Robert Weygand handily in 2000 to win the Senate seat he had been appointed to the year before by then-Gov. Lincoln C. Almond after his father died in office.

Chafee has carved a reputation as a moderate with an independent streak in a GOP-controlled Senate dominated by conservatives. He has strenuously opposed President Bush's Iraq policies and voted against the president's tax-cut plans. And he did not vote for Mr. Bush in the 2004 election; instead, Chafee wrote in the name of Mr. Bush's father -- former president George H.W. Bush -- for president.

Those stances have not endeared him to conservative Republicans and have sparked speculation that Chafee could be subject to a GOP primary campaign from a party conservative.

A spokesman for Langevin said yesterday that he was encouraged by the poll results and that he would make up his mind on a Senate run by April 1.