In his speech celebrating his impending nomination, Republican Donald Trump on Tuesday reeled off a list of hard-hit industrial states he believes are ripe for his message, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and … Connecticut?

President Obama won Connecticut by 17 percentage points in 2012, and it has not gone Republican in a presidential contest since 1988.

In the annals of presidential politics, the Constitution State does not normally leap to mind as a swing state. President Obama won it by 17 percentage points in 2012, and it has not gone Republican in a presidential contest since 1988.

Still, a poll this week by Quinnipiac University gave Democrat Hillary Clinton a lead of 45 percent to 38 percent in a head-to-head matchup. When pollsters included third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, Clinton’s lead shrunk to 5 points.

Those results give hope to long-suffering Connecticut Republicans that Trump might be able to change the electoral map in November.

“We have suffered more than any other state under massive, liberal economic failure,” state GOP Chairman J.R. Romano told LifeZette.

The Connecticut many people think of — well-off white-collar workers commuting from upscale suburban neighborhoods to New York City — is an oversimplified stereotype, Romano said. He said much of the state is made up of small towns where manufacturing was once dominant. He blamed a combination of national and state policies for the loss of companies like GE, which announced a move to Boston this year, and Blue Buffalo Pet Products, which is moving manufacturing operations to Indiana.

In that way, Romano said, Connecticut resembles states like Michigan and Illinois.

[lz_table title=”Connecticut in Play?” source=”Quinnipiac University Poll”],Trump,Clinton
Registered voters,38%,45%
Republicans,79%,9%
Democrats,5%,85%
Independents,41%,36%
Men,48%,36%
Women,30%,53%
[/lz_table]

“I think Donald Trump is tapping into that fear and anxiety,” he said. “Connecticut is turning into a Rust Belt state.”

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Outside observers expressed skepticism. While conceding that Clinton’s single-digit lead is “smaller than might be expected from true-blue Connecticut,” Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz said in a news release that Trump remains a long shot.

“Maybe Connecticut will matter again in the general election, just as it did in the primaries,” he stated. “Trump won the primary overwhelmingly. Could he win here again in November? Unlikely, but there already have been so many surprises — who knows?”

Poling in 2012 sometimes put Romney in the same range as the poll released this week. Three polls conducted in 2012 put him 7 points behind Obama in Connecticut, and another survey had him down by 6.

Jeffrey Ladewig, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut, said Democrats have a clear edge in the liberal-leaning state. What’s more, he added, Connecticut Republicans tend to be better-educated than their counterparts elsewhere. Trump performed best in the primaries with less-educated voters.

Ladewig said Connecticut’s OK-but-not-great economy offers an opening, but he predicted Trump’s rhetoric will make it difficult to turn enough voters.

“I would say it’s highly unlikely,” he said.

The poll indicates that Trump and Clinton evenly split voters who did not graduate from college. Among those with college degrees, however, she leads by 16 points.

As in other polling, both candidates have sky-high unfavorable ratings. Trump gets a negative assessment from 61 percent, while Clinton registered unfavorably with 55 percent. Some 67 percent said Clinton was not honest and trustworthy, compared with 63 percent who said the same about Trump.

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A majority said Trump would bring real change to Washington, while 82 percent said it would be business as usual under Clinton.

Romano, the Republican chairman, expressed confidence that Trump will bring out new voters. He recounted that a friend who had not voted since 2008 showed up to vote for Trump.

“When he showed up, he didn’t even realize he was registered as a Democrat,” he said. “That guy’s not in these turnout models. And there are thousands of them.”

Romano points to another factor — historically high negative ratings of Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy. A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday suggested that 68 percent of voters disapprove of the job he is doing — the worst of his tenure and the highest of any Connecticut governor since 2004, when 69 percent disapproved of then-Gov. John Rowland, who was in the midst of a corruption scandal.

Romano noted that the Clinton campaign counts Malloy as one of its most prominent surrogates.

“He is an utter failure, and everything that Hillary Clinton wants to do to the country, he has done here,” he said. “We are in fiscal peril and they [Connecticut Democrats] are debating whether people should be able to own a lion. And I wish I were kidding.”