Those surveyed also say they would choose Governor Carcieri over U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin in a race for governor.

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 30, 2005

BY ELIZABETH GUDRAIS
Journal Staff Writer

Secretary of State Matt Brown has gained votes since February, but so has Lincoln D. Chafee, the U.S. senator he hopes to oppose in 2006, and former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse is more likely than Brown to give Chafee a significant challenge, the latest Brown University poll found.

In a race pitting Chafee against Whitehouse, Chafee would pick up 41 percent of the vote while Whitehouse would snag 36 percent, the poll found.

In a Brown-Chafee race, respondents picked Chafee over Brown, 44 percent to 29 percent. In February, those numbers were 39 percent to 25 percent, with "don't know" and "no answer" making up the rest.

The race for Chafee's seat, still more than a year away, already makes headlines on a weekly basis. Due to Rhode Island's small size and Chafee's idiosyncratic voting record, it's one of the most watched races in the nation.

Since the last poll, several crucial pieces of the political puzzle have fallen into place. In February, Whitehouse had not yet announced, and the pollsters plugged him into the governor's race, measuring him against Governor Carcieri.

The newest poll also includes Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, who still has not announced, but has expressed interest in doing battle with Chafee in a Republican primary.

The poll did not pose a Chafee-Laffey decision. Instead, it asked, Laffey or Brown, and, Laffey or Whitehouse?

The answers: Brown, 40 percent to Laffey's 30 percent; and Whitehouse, 45 percent to Laffey's 32 percent. In other words, if Laffey won a primary, he would lose the general election to a Democrat.

February's poll tested the waters for a race between Chafee and U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin. Though the poll found in Democrat Langevin's favor, he's since announced he's staying put. Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty, whose name was tossed around for Langevin's seat if it emptied, has now set his sights on the governor's job, though he's said he won't formally announce until early next year.

The new poll shows the Republican governor with a still-high approval rating (57 percent, unchanged since February) and a healthy lead over Fogarty, a Democrat who's been in the news lately criticizing the state's inspection record for assisted-living facilities and telling union members at a State House rally earlier this month that he'll give them respect they don't get from Carcieri.

Carcieri led Fogarty 48 percent to 39 percent among poll respondents. In that race, too, both candidates gained ground: In February, those percentages were 44 and 33, respectively.

Carcieri remained the state-level official with the highest approval rating, though Fogarty is breathing down his neck: Fogarty's rating is now 52 percent, up from 46 percent four months ago.

Laffey's approval rating was down, dropping to 44 percent from 51 percent.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, already at the top of Rhode Islanders' approval scale in February, climbed even higher, from 63 percent to 71 percent. Approval ratings for the other three congressmen also went up: Langevin from 59 to 63 percent, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy from 49 to 56 percent, and Chafee from 48 to 53 percent.

Just 24 percent of respondents described the job President Bush is doing as "good" or "excellent."

Of 15 officials whose approval ratings the poll measured, the only one who ranked lower than Mr. Bush was state Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, at 17 percent. (State House Speaker William J. Murphy tied with Mr. Bush at 24 percent.)

Even state Supreme Court Justice Frank J. Williams -- controversial, most recently, for serving on a U.S. military appeal panel while heading Rhode Island's judiciary (a combination his Supreme Court colleagues officially endorsed earlier this month) and for a now-defunct personal Web site, developed by a court staffer in her spare time and on Williams' dime, that, among other things, advertised Williams' availability for public speaking engagements and listed the Supreme Court spokeswoman as his booking agent -- scored 34 percent.

The poll, conducted June 25 through 27, surveyed a random sample of 470 Rhode Island voters. It was conducted by Brown political science Prof. Darrell M. West, who directs Brown's Taubman Center for Public Policy and John Hazen White Sr. Public Opinion Laboratory.

Researchers gave the poll's margin of error as plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.