Looming in the background of the election is the threat of a libel suit by McMahon’s company, the WWE, against a columnist who compared WWE programming to pornography. The company has been aggressively and vocally defending its integrity, which as the Connecticut Mirror pointed out, has kept the media focused elsewhere. McMahon left WWE in 2009 before her last Senate run, so she has a little more distance from the issue, but still, the person familiar with the campaign said, “it’s not helpful.”
Equally unhelpful for the Republican candidate is the fact that Connecticut is a decidedly blue state. The Cook Political Report currently ranks it as “likely Democratic” — and after the primary, the Republican nominee will face an uphill battle.
“I think this is a long way before getting moved to a more competitive column, and I’m certainly not going to do it on the basis of a single poll,” Duffy said. “But it did get my interest, it got my attention, now I’m going be paying attention to other numbers that are coming out.”
The Shays campaign did not respond to request for comment.
