Connecticut governorship in play as Rell drops out

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's Democratic Party, which lost two state governorships last week, drew hope for winning the governor's office in Connecticut next year after the Republican incumbent said she would not run for re-election.

Jodi Rell, in office since 2004, said on Monday she would not seek another term, setting the stage for a wide-open contest between a field of Democrats led by Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and Republicans including Rell's No. 2, Michael Fedele.

"It can't help but be a plus for the Democrats, because they don't need to run against the incumbent," said Howard Reiter, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut. "She has remained pretty popular."

It has been 18 years since a Democrat occupied the governor's mansion in Connecticut, the state with the highest per-capita income in the United States.

Ruling parties tend to lose ground in U.S. mid-term elections and the Democrats are looking to hold on to their majority in the two houses of the U.S. Congress as well as their state positions in the elections in November, 2010.

Republican victories in governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia last week were seen as showing the limits to the clout of the popular Obama, who is under pressure over the war in Afghanistan and the slow economic recovery.

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted November 2-8 found that 64 percent of Connecticut voters approved of the way that Rell was doing her job.

BOWING OUT EARLY

Reiter said by bowing out early, Rell had done her party a favor. "It gives her would-be successor an opportunity to build up some momentum," he said.

Lieutenant Governor Fedele has told local media he plans to run. Analysts named state House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero and state Senate Minority Leader John McKinney as other likely Republican contenders.

Bysiewicz leads the Democratic field, according to the Quinnipiac poll. She faces a well-known challenger in Ned Lamont -- who came to national attention in 2006 when he ran against U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman.

Lamont beat Lieberman in the party primary, but the incumbent went on to win re-election as an independent.

"If Connecticut elects a Democratic governor in 2010, in many ways that would quiet some of the talk about the Democratic party being in trouble for 2012" when Obama will seek re-election, Gary Rose, professor of politics at Sacred Heart University, said.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by David Storey)