Hartford - As he prepares to sign a repeal of Connecticut's death penalty into law, the governor says that even if he doesn't have the support of all voters, he is sticking to his own convictions, formed by his experiences as a New York City prosecutor who helped lock up four people in homicide cases.

The repeal bill, which passed in both chambers of the General Assembly this month, would abolish the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release.

But Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's support of the repeal could become a political liability, said Tom C. Foley, the Republican candidate who ran against Malloy in the 2010 gubernatorial election.

He pointed to recent Quinnipiac University polls that suggest a majority of support for the punishment in the state.

"Anytime you implement policies that a large majority of people don't support, your chances of being re-elected will diminish," he said.

Even if Malloy does not seek re-election, Foley said, the governor could face public backlash if the 11 current death row inmates, who are not affected by the repeal, use it as a new avenue for appeal. Malloy said he has yet to decide if he will run for re-election.

Foley also criticized the governor for putting his own stance against the death penalty above those of a majority of polled Connecticut residents who said they were against the punishment.

"Politicians are elected to implement the will of the people," he said.

But the governor told the Associated Press in an interview that the General Assembly that voted in favor of the bill represents residents and he intends on signing it into law, regardless of poll results.

"I'm representing the people who agree with me," Malloy said. "And I'm representing the will, as expressed through the legislature."

Malloy said he is not concerned with the effect his support for abolishing the death penalty could have on his approval rating, saying the punishment was an issue when he ran for governor and he dealt with public opinion then.

"Whatever it does, it does," he said. "It's not a calculation that I entered into and not a calculation that I'll try to make in the future."

Malloy said his personal support for abolishing the death penalty goes back to his days as a prosecutor in Brooklyn, N.Y., when he won four homicide convictions. It was then that he formed his beliefs that the legal system is flawed and that the death penalty doesn't deter crime.

According to the March poll, support for repealing the death penalty was about 31 percent, with Malloy's approval rating at 44 percent. The poll surveyed 1,622 registered voters on an array of issues. The margin of sampling error for the poll was plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

Critics of the poll, however, disapprove of the way the question on the death penalty was crafted. It asked individuals whether they thought abolishing Connecticut's death penalty is a good or bad idea. In past Quinnipiac polls, residents were asked whether they supported life imprisonment in lieu of the death penalty.

In March 2011, about 43 percent of those surveyed said they preferred the punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole to the death penalty for murder convicts.

The director of the Quinnipiac University poll, Douglas Schwartz, defended the wording of the death penalty question in the 2012 poll. He said it was asked in a way to reflect the legislation, where in the past it has been asked to reflect general attitudes.

Maurice Carroll, another director of the Quinnipiac University poll, said years of polling experience lead him to believe Malloy's support for the death penalty will affect his approval rating, but overall, won't hurt him if he seeks re-election.

"On election day, in my experience, it has never made a hell of a difference," he said.

Death penalty repeal opponent Rep. David Labriola, R-Naugatuck, called Malloy's stance on the punishment "disingenuous." He said he believes it's likely that current death row inmates will be able to appeal to change their sentences to life imprisonment under the bill.

"It could well become an issue for Gov. Malloy in the future because the people of Connecticut strongly support the death penalty," he said. "You can't have it both ways."

Brushing off claims from critics, Malloy stood by his decision to support the repeal effort, arguing that Connecticut's death penalty and its appeals process have created a flawed system. He pointed to the one execution in the state in the past 51 years, when serial killer Michael Ross was administered the lethal injection in 2005. Ross pushed for his death sentence to be carried out and was the first person executed in New England since 1960.

The bill does require that people convicted of a charge that the bill created, murder with special circumstances, be subject to prison conditions similar to those of death row inmates.