A source informs BMG that the Sunday Globe will report a poll showing Martha Coakley up 51-35, but among voters “very interested” in the race, it’s tied at 47. That’s consistent with other reports around the interwebs, as well as with a Herald poll supposedly coming out tomorrow that has Coakley up 7, but only up 1 among “likely voters.”
UPDATE: Here is the Globe story, and here is the actual poll. Our source was pretty much right: Coakley is up 50-35 among “likely voters” not counting “leaners,” and 53-36 including leaners, but it’s tied at 47 for those “extremely interested” in the election. However, if you go down to “very interested,” Coakley’s up 57-35. And then there’s the “somewhat” and “not very” interesteds. What are 167 of them doing in a poll of “likely voters”? What’s the difference between “extremely” and “very” interested? Who comes up with these models, anyway?
I can’t find anything about a Herald poll. Anyone?
I’ve said this before: polling works, in that it provides an accurate snapshot of where the race stands at a particular moment. So these polls need to be taken very seriously. The message they are delivering is consistent: among the people who, as of today, are most likely to show up on Jan. 19, it’s too close to call.
That’s not an acceptable situation, and it needs to change. Stated differently, and more accurately, you need to change it. Do what you can.
I have felt for some time that the people most likely to show up and vote in this low turnout special election are the same ignorant and ill-informed people who disrupted Town Hall meeting last summer, whose level of political discourse is juvenile name-calling (“Obama is a Nazi”), and whose sources of information are Hate Radio and Fox “News.”
I think Brown clearly has these right wing nuts lined up to support him and they are highly motivated. But I think there’s a larger group of moderate to conservative independents in MA who voted for Bush twice, but crossed over to vote for Obama in 2008. These voters are very susceptible to the GOP message that the Democrats under Obama are a pack of crazy radicals — it took the train wreck of the Bush Administration to get them into the D column and they aren’t necessarily going to stay there. I wonder how motivated they are, though, and I wonder if the polls are over-estimating their likelihood of actually voting.
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p>Of course, none of this matters if the Democratic base turns out, but Coakley does not appear to be generating much enthusiasm at the moment. Maybe these polls will change that.
.. I thought we worshiped at the altar of “turnout….turnout…turnout!!!”
Let’s HUMILIATE Brown, Teabaggers, PPP and the GOP Haters (6.00 / 6)
I advocated for an outsider progressive candidate in the primary and ended up voting for Alan Khazei. I posted on BMG that Martha Coakley was my next-to-last choice, above only Pagliuca.
But make no mistake: without hesitation, I will between now and election day make calls, send a donation, knock on doors, and volunteer in any capacity to ensure a Martha Coakley victory.
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p>Not just a modest victory, either.
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p>Scott “The Clown” Brown, the anti-American teabaggers, talk radio racists, Republican Right wackos, and every other bigoted fundamentalist freak that infects our sacred Democracy like an anal-rectal cancer is trying to propagandize a close race for Sen. Kennedy’s seat in order to stampede the corporate media sheep.
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p>For this, we must –all of us progressives– not just defeat them, but humiliate them.
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p>On January 20 we will drag them back by the scalp to their political feces, with which they sought to soil the legacy of America’s greatest US Senator, and we will rub their noses in it.
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p>That’s right, all up in it…
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p>Let’s use this utterly bogus PPP poll to rally a good old-fashioned Cod-eatin’, PT-109-lovin’ red-white-and-blue, cradle-of-democracy, patriotic, election day ass-kicking on these Palinite dead-enders and unrepentant Bush-holes so they feel the hurt right through 2012…
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p>by: ThrobbingPatriot @ Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 21:47:22 PM EST
A sad reality is that the result of the primary was to drive away a huge number of “very interested” voters. There was just one Democratic candidate in the primary that stoked the “fire-in-the-belly” voters of this state, and that candidate was defeated by Martha Coakley’s successful rope-a-dope campaign. January 9th is a little late to transform our candidate into an energizing, inspiring, passionate campaigner.
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p>I’m growing weary of being told that I need to change. Maybe it’s time that our party and its candidates change.
and I am now committed to voting for Martha Coakley. I may even volunteer and send her some $$.
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p>I was a Khazei supporter and have many serious problems with the state and national Democratic Party. I was flirting with the idea of voting for the independent candidate, Joe Kennedy, because I like his views on many foreign policy issues, the bailout/stimulus debacles, and the drug war. However, it is clear Kennedy does not have a chance in hell of putting in a decent showing. More significantly, it is also clear this is becoming a close race. Therefore, I need to use my vote in support of Coakley’s campaign.
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p>Scott Brown’s views on torture, same-sex marriage, Afghanistan, and many other issues are wrongheaded and dangerous. I refuse to vote in a way that would propel him to the U.S. Senate. As Dan Payne pointed out in the Globe recently, Scott Brown is no Ed Brooke. I would consider voting for an Ed Brooke-type Republican. But, Scott Brown is a Mitch McConnell-Dick Cheney-type of Republican.
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p>This is no ringing endorsement of Martha Coakley, but I’d sleep better at night knowing she was in the Senate and not Scott Brown. She’s so more sensible on the environment, civil liberties, equal rights, and on some foreign policy items like the recent escalation in Afghanistan.
I’m a New Yorker, and after seeing these nail-biting results, I want to go to Massachusetts on election day to help with the turnout. It is incredibly important that all of us who support the progressive agenda, regardless as to who we supported in the primary, throw our support to Coakley. I know, many from the Capuano and Khazei camps are inclined to write it off and start declaring sour grapes before the election happens . . . but, if Brown wins, any hopes of passing a progressive agenda in Congress is absolutely toast. And if that happens, the GOP can point at Obama and say he’s a “do-nothing,” which would make 2012 an even more difficult year for us than it already might be. To have a record of progressive accomplishments, our side needs to be able to pass them. We need Coakley. In two years, if she hasn’t proven herself to be the strong, forceful progressive that we all want, we can support a progressive primary challenger. But for the time being, WE. CANNOT. LET. BROWN. WIN.
but got out the credit card for the Coakley campaign earlier this evening.
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p>I was also motivated to do something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile: I constructed a Facebook list of friends entitled “probably left-of-center,” and then used this list to send out my first ever semi-targeted facebook post, alerting everyone to the risk we would face with a potential Brown win. I provided a link to the latest fivethirtyeight post and urged people to contribute or volunteer by going to http://www.marthacoakley.com.
I subscribe to GlobeReader, which just (at 1AM) came out with Sunday’s edition. I thought that GlobeReader corresponded to the Globe Print edition. (We canceled delivery of the print edition because sections were frequently being left out).
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p>There is no poll in sight on GlobeReader.
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p>Perhaps it will be updated later in the morning, but my understanding has been that GlobeReader is not updated during the day.
http://www.boston.com/news/pol…
Martha is just plain awful. Was awful when she ran for state rep too.
. . . but carping about that is counterproductive. We have to keep our eyes on what’s ahead, and do what we can to elect Coakley. Cap or Khazei can primary her in two years if she doesn’t prove herself. Right now, though, we have to make sure she wins.
For those of you who supported someone other than Coakley in the primary, now is the time to get over it and get to work electing the Democratic candidate. I have a long and proud record of supporting losing candidates in primaries: Mo Udall for president in 1976, Jim Shannon vs. John Kerry for US Senate, Jesse Jackson for President, Robert Reich for Governor, Hillary Clinton for President, etc. You can’t play this game of politics and expect to win all the time, and when your candidate loses, unless the prevailing candidate is so anathema that you would rather poke out your own eyes than vote for her/him (and that happens sometimes), you really need to get in the booth and pull the lever for the primary’s winner.
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p>The poll is up now
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p>The 47%/47% split are the numbers for “extremely interested in election”: one hundred and fifty people
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p>The numbers for “very interested”, two hundred and twenty nine people, are at 57 to 35.
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p>Why two levels of distinction for ‘interested’?? Beats me. Maybe slicing it this way makes things more exciting.
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p>Browns numbers trail even further in the “Somewhat/Not Very interested” category, to 27% to 53%.
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p>So for the “very interested” AND “extremely interested” categories , assuming that base ‘interest’ translates to a trip to the polls, the numbers combine (on the back of my envelope…) to 53% for Coakley and 40% for Scott Brown.
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p>Interestingly, DK (Don’t Know) is pretty low, at 5%, suggesting that minds are pretty much made up.
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p>So, Brown needs everyone last one of HIS “very interested” and “extremely interested” voters to turn up and quite a lot of HER “very interested” and “Extremely interested” voters to stay home in order that he have a ghost of a chance…
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p>Also… this poll was conducted the day before Vicki Kennedy endorsed Coakley…. You might have heard about that… it was in all the papers.
That was in all the papers, too.
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p>Demonstrating one again that the honorable word of a Democrat is an oxymoronic concept.
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p>Funny thing about that – Kirk excused himself by saying that it was no secret where his leanings were. Which was perfectly correct. Which makes his endorsement even less necessary, but DOES demonstrate why the corrupt/felonious Mass. Dems cannot be trusted on even the smallest issue.
your teabag is showing. 😉
She wins Likely Voters by 16 with Leaners, by 15 without.
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p>She wins favorability by 17.
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p>She wins as the better candidate on every issue except Afghanistan, where she’s tied.
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p>69% of people in this poll favor the health reform bill (30% strongly).
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p>So only among people who are apparently intensely passionate about this election is Brown even really competitive.
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p>I can’t deny being a bit relieved.
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p>I also can’t deny seriously questioning the Globe’s strong polling in Coakley’s favor when I was supporting Capuano. But I have to give them credit for calling it right.
. . . as long as you’re not complacent! We still have to fight to win this thing.
And I will work hard to make that reality. This is about turnout not polls. Can someone point out the Repub turnout machince for me? What did Brown pull in the primary -100,000?
Since he’s a smart guy, he doesn’t pretend to have a clue on this one:
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WHO FUCKIN CARES WHAT SHE SAID. We don’t need members of MA elite telling us dumb peasants who to vote for. Does she really think there are people out there who will change who they are going to vote for because she recommends it?
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p>The more the Democratic establishment recommends Martha, the higher the SCott Brown vote count goes.