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Sunday, April 24, 1994     Page: 1B QUICK WORDS: MUSTO HAS ANOTHER
BLOCKBUSTER POLL

Musto has another blockbuster poll f the numbers are anywhere close to
being on the mark, Ray Musto would skunk both Frank Trinisewski and Neil
O’Donnell for the Democratic nomination for the state Senate in the 14th
District if the primary election were held nowUsing figures compiled for the
Musto campaign in a poll of registered Democrats in the district taken this
month by Lester Telemarketing of Branford, Conn., Musto is a million miles
ahead of his two opponents.
   
The poll is considered scientific and has a margin of error of plus or
minus 4.5 percent.
    The key question in it is this:
   
“On May 10 there will be a primary election for state senator in your
district between Neil O’Donnell, Ray Musto, and Frank Trinisewski. Providing
the election was being held today, who would you vote for — O’Donnell, Musto,
or Trinisewski?”
   
Here’s what the poll results were:
   
O’Donnell — 11 percent.
   
Musto — 48 percent.
   
Trinisewski — 18 percent.
   
The next question after that one deals with the undecided voters, and asks,
“Well, which way are you leaning — to O’Donnell, to Musto, or to
Trinisewski?”
   
O’Donnell — 0 percent.
   
Musto — 2 percent.
   
Trinisewski — 1 percent.
   
Still undecided — 22 percent.
   
A little simple addition shows that when you add up O’Donnell’s 11 percent,
Trinisewski’s 18 percent, and the 22 percent of undecideds the total is 51
percent, which is practically even with Musto’s 48 percent when the 4.5
percent error margin is factored in.
   
Of course, there’s no way Musto won’t pick up some of those undecided
voters.
   
Naturally, Musto is sky high with these fantastic results.
   
He is telling everybody that his campaign is “right on track” and that many
folks previously committed to either Trinisewski or O’Donnell are jumping from
them over to him.
   
“I get calls all the time from people who tell me they’re giving up on my
opponents and want to help me,” Musto says.
   
Both the Trinisewski and O’Donnell campaigns have taken polls, too.
   
A recent one for O’Donnell showed him moving up. The upward boost is being
pegged to O’Donnell’s television and radio advertising, which has been under
way and will continue right up to Election Day.
   
Ed Mitchell, O’Donnell’s media guy, has said he’ll have a “tracking poll”
done this week to see how much farther O’Donnell has moved up as a result of
the heavy television and radio schedule.
   
Mitchell and O’Donnell are confident the ads on TV and the radio spots will
push O’Donnell to a win over Musto, who is their target in the race.
   
he O’Donnell folks have pretty much decided Trinisewski’s campaign is on
the ropes.
   
That’s why O’Donnell has Musto in his sights, not Trinisewski.
   
“I’m focused on Musto, O’Donnell says, “and I’m satisfied that I’m in a
position to win on May 10.”
   
As for Trinisewski, O’Donnell says, “He’s out of gas financially, so this
thing has come down to a fight between Musto and myself.”
   
Mitchell estimates the total cost of O’Donnell’s TV and radio advertising
will run around $100,000. Some $35,000 has already been spent on electronic
advertising.
   
Like O’Donnell, Mitchell has written off Trinisewski.
   
“He won’t be a player,” Mitchell says. “He can’t come up with the money to
be competitive.”
   
Trinisewski has said he’s taken a poll of the 14th District Democrats also,
and he has found he and Musto are “neck-and-neck” with O’Donnell “behind.”
   
“Musto’s all wet with his poll, and he knows it and I know it,” Trinisewski
said. “The people know it too. He’s in for the political fight of his life.”
   
The next two weeks will be rocky for Musto, Trinisewski said. “He better
buckle up.”
   
As for being “out of gas financially,” Trinisewski continues to insist
he’ll put from $150,000 to $175,000 into his effort to get the nomination.
Musto says he’ll spend about that much, too.
   
His biggest fund-raiser, Trinisewski says, is yet to come.
   
“I’ll raise about $75,000 when I have my $50-a-ticket get-together on April
28 at Genetti’s,” he says. “There will be about 1,500 people there.” He says
his next expense filing will show between $80,000 and $90,000, and that will
be before his major affair of April 28. Overall, he says, he’ll have $175,000.
   
Since everybody seems to have poll or one kind or another, former city
Councilman Jim McCarthy chipped in with his.
   
He said his pollsters talked to 14th District Democrats and found that
Musto is at 43 percent; Trinisewski at 40 percent, and O’Donnell at 17
percent. This one wasn’t scientific, but even so, those numbers obviously have
to interest the candidates.
   
McCarthy himself and his organization — the Democrats United — are for
Musto. They endorsed him a while back.
   
Associate Editor Bill Griffith’s politics column runs on Sundays.