Norwich — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, locked in a dead heat with Republican Tom Foley in a bid to win a second term, told business leaders here Wednesday morning that his administration battles the perception that his state is a tough place to do business.

“In Connecticut, the effective corporate tax rate is the lowest of any state in the country except North Carolina, but when I say that, nobody believes me,” the governor said. “The perception that we have a terrible tax system for corporations is simply not true.”

Foley has charged that Malloy’s policies have hampered business, an assertion supported by a Washington-based research group that this week listed Connecticut among the 10 worst states for business taxes. At No. 42, Connecticut ranks ahead of neighboring Rhode Island (45), New York (49) and New Jersey (50).

Malloy, who addressed a meeting of the Greater Norwich Area Chamber of Commerce at the NLC Insurance Companies, said he’s steered the state out of the Great Recession, balancing budgets, cutting debt and creating jobs, all while preserving aid to municipalities and reducing crime.

Quinnipiac University’s latest survey of likely voters, released early Wednesday, showed Malloy and Foley tied with 43 percent of the vote. Petitioning candidate Joe Visconti, a Republican, had 7 percent of the vote, with 6 percent undecided.

“Polls are polls. There’s only one that counts,” Malloy told reporters after the chamber meeting. “We’re going to keep working hard and we’re going to win this thing. … At this point four years ago, we were three points down.”

He said Tuesday’s election outcome would turn on the campaigns’ ability to get out the vote.

“That’s our challenge,” he said. “We’ll win 40 to 44 communities in the state and we’ve got to make sure we win them by as much as we can.”

A spokesman for the Foley campaign said the Republican candidate was focused on Election Day.

“Tom is bringing a message of lower taxes, more higher paying jobs and this message will carry the day on Tuesday,” Mark McNulty, the campaign’s communications director, said in an email.

Noting that passage of the state’s new gun-control law had occasioned spikes in gun and ammunition sales followed by a 32 percent reduction in homicides, an audience member suggested the state should be encouraging such sales rather than seeking to limit them.

“The reality is that murders declined in 2013 and declined more this year,” Malloy said. “Most of the murders we’re preventing are street murders. We stopped one (gun) buyer who we found out later was intending to shoot up another school. We’ve stopped more than 200 people who had restraining orders against them from buying guns.

“You and I can disagree (about gun control),” he said. “But you can’t disagree that the state is substantially safer. If you want to attribute it to all the guns, feel free. I attribute it to something else.”

The governor responded to questions about the high price of gasoline in the state, heavy truck traffic and the siting of housing for released sex offenders.

He attributed the high gasoline prices to the lack of tolls in Connecticut, a revenue-producer employed in others states that have less expensive fuel. He said Connecticut’s considerable distance from gasoline-producing refineries in such states as Delaware, New Jersey and Virginia also boosts prices here.

The governor said the state was ready to begin construction on scores of long-delayed transportation projects. In southeastern Connecticut, he said, Interstate 95 should be widened and the Route 11 extension project completed.

“We have a lot of catching up to do,” Malloy said.

In regard to newly released sex offenders, he said there needs to be a “fair allocation” of halfway houses throughout the state. He said he wasn’t aware of the number of offenders housed in Norwich, adding that “no one should be overburdened.”

Before arriving in Norwich, Malloy campaigned at Electric Boat, greeting workers outside the gates at the shipbuilder’s Groton yard. He returned there later to announce the state was providing EB with a $10 million loan to help fund an expansion expected to create 200 jobs.

Wednesday’s Quinnipiac poll, the last before the election, showed that with Visconti out of the race, Foley got 46 percent of the vote to Malloy’s 45 percent. In the three-way matchup, independent voters favored Foley over Malloy, 48 to 33 percent, with Visconti picking up 14 percent.

Among women, Malloy led Foley 52 to 35 percent, with 5 percent for Visconti. Among men, Foley led Malloy 51 to 34 percent with Visconti getting 10 percent.

Foley’s favorability rating improved since the previous poll a week earlier, with 43 percent of voters saying they had a favorable opinion of him and 43 percent saying they had a negative opinion of him. Forty-one percent had a favorable opinion of Malloy, while 52 percent had a negative opinion of him.

The Visconti camp questioned the latest poll results

“Joe is disappointed with Quinnipiac,” Jeff Weiss, a Visconti spokesman, said in an email. “They are underpolling unaffiliated voters and oversampling Republicans. We expected a significant lift in name recognition after last Thursday’s debate on NBC Connecticut, yet the Q-Poll only shows his name recognition at 25 percent.

“This can be partly attributed to the fact that the first two days of the polling period were prior to the debate, but they still seem low given the wide name recognition we have seen when contacting voters.”

Visconti will not drop out of the race, Weiss said.

“Despite receiving many calls to drop out and endorse Tom Foley, as Joe stated during the NBC debate, he doesn’t believe he could carry Foley across the finish line because of Foley’s high negative numbers,” he said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com

Twitter: @bjhallenbeck