- Ted, welcome back.

Good to see you.

So, Salve Regina University's Pell Center, recently released this survey of Rhode Islanders who are likely to vote in the upcoming election.

A lot to this survey, but let's start with the presidential race.

The poll shows that if the election were held today, 40% of likely voters would support Joe Biden.

33% would support Donald Trump.

12% would support independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And 11% are not sure.

That's a relatively close result considering that Rhode Island is a reliably blue state.

- That was definitely my reaction Michelle.

Of course, we always have to give the usual caveats.

This is just one poll, it's just a snapshot in time, and we should say that there was a University of New Hampshire poll recently, of renowned voters that gave Biden a bigger lead than this.

But I do think when you look closely at the findings, you can understand what's happening here.

It looks like, as we've seen in other polls nationally, Joe Biden has a bit of an enthusiasm problem with Democrats.

They're not coalescing behind him.

Most Democrats are voting for him obviously, but not to the degree that Republicans are voting for Trump, and that's why he is underperforming, where you'd expect a Democratic candidate to be versus previous elections.

- Let's move on to another result.

The poll shows that 57% of Rhode Island voters agree with the recent decision by a jury in New York to convict Trump in the so-called Hush Money trial.

While 35% disagree.

Which we should point out, that just because people are not supporting President Biden, does not mean that they are throwing their support behind the former president either.

- Exactly.

I think this result really is helpful for people to think about where the electorate stands in Rhode Island.

There's clearly plenty of Democrats, or Democratic leaning independents who aren't sold on Joe Biden, or wish they had another option at the moment, but that has not converted them into Trump voters as we see here.

Here you have almost three in five likely Rhode Island voters agreeing that the Republican nominee is a convicted felon and should be one.

Not a great base to start from, as you're trying to win them over to vote for you.

And then the other thing is the context, right?

Republicans have not won a major race in Rhode Island now in almost 20 years.

Trump's getting that roughly a third of the vote that Republicans consistently get in Rhode Island.

The problem is they can't seem in any election to build on that into the 40s and up to 50% plus one to win.

- Let's look at what the poll found about Governor Dan McKee, who is now in his fourth year in office.

The survey shows only 36% of Rhode Island voters approve of the job McKee is doing as governor, while 54% disapprove and one in 10 are not sure.

Of course, those are not the numbers that Governor McKee and his advisors want to see at this point.

- No, and it's interesting, Michelle, 'cause when I saw that, part of what I thought about was this is a pattern of governors in Rhode Island having low approval ratings for frankly, a long time.

Gina Raimondo struggled with low approval ratings other than during Covid where she saw a bump.

Lincoln Chaffee had pretty dismal approval ratings when he was governor.

Even Don Carcieri in his second term had low approval ratings.

In that sense Dan McKee is just, following the trend of Rhode Islanders being down on their governors for quite a while.

But I'd assume that his advisor had hoped he could break that trend rather than continue it.

- Right, but as we know, governor Raimondo was reelected, went on to become Commerce Secretary.

- A good point.

- So, she has done well for her herself.

- Yes, you don't necessarily need a wicked high approval rating to win a reelection.

- Well, and back to Governor McKee, you wonder how he would do in the polls, had his handling of the Westbound Washington Bridge been different, of course had that never occurred, the poll shows that only 29% of Rhode Island voters approve of how McKee handled the bridge situation.

Again, having to close the westbound side of the bridge, while 59% disapprove, and this has to be a concern as the governor prepares to run for reelection.

That's not happening until 2026, but of course they're always thinking about that.

- Well, and of course the other problem for him, Michelle, is the bridge is gonna stay in the news, because the schedule for demolishing the old westbound bridge building the new one, has it that the new bridge is supposed to open right before the Democratic primary for governor in 2026.

So there's gonna be consistent news coverage developments.

How this project is handled, or is there more disruption for drivers?

Is it on time?

Is it on budget?

All of that, I think is gonna be in voters' minds, maybe not every day, but it's gonna keep coming up over the next two years and be, one of the ways they're judging the governor.

In the short term, the big question right now is what will the cost actually be to build the new bridge?

We're waiting for those bids in July.

I think that's gonna be a telling moment coming right up.

- And it's worth stressing too with these polls, it's one brief snapshot of a moment in time.

We both know that things can quickly change if this poll were conducted, say two months from now.

- Absolutely.

You mentioned Gina Raimondo.

Think about what happened there.

She had been fairly unpopular.

Yes, she won reelection, but her approval rating had never been great during her time in office.

Covid hits.

People liked how she handled that initially.

She saw this wild surge in her approval rating.

So yeah, people crisis.

I think it shows here crises can change people's opinions one way or the other.

I think for McKee, the bridge crisis hasn't been a time voters were thrilled, clearly with what he was doing, and that's been a problem for him.

But maybe he can turn that around, or maybe a different crisis gives him a different opportunity.

- Thanks so much, Ted.

- Good to be here.