Awkward. Charlie Baker, fresh from boinking Christy Mihos off the GOP ballot in the course of his big convention win, is now in third place for the Governor’s race.
Asked who they would support if the election were held today, Patrick led with 34 percent, following by Cahill at 29 percent and Baker at 27 percent, the Western New England College Polling Institute found.
There’s not really much good news for anyone other than Cahill in this poll (read the whole thing (PDF) at this link). Patrick’s fav/unfav (40/48) and approve/disapprove (34/49) numbers are still stubbornly low; the right track/wrong track numbers still suck (30/60), and he’s only five points ahead of Cahill. But the person who should be really worried by this poll is Charlie Baker. Pretty clearly, Tim Cahill is not going away any time soon. He still has a ton of money in the bank, and his numbers are respectable and apparently getting better rather than worse.
So Charlie doesn’t have to fight off Christy Mihos. But that may have been the least of his worries.
Its really shameful that none of these guys will be the choice of the majority of voters. It is also shameful that the Governor could get re-elected with most of the state voting for the other guy. And it would be real shameful if we elected Tim Cahill. Very troubling indeed. Kudos to you David for sticking to the facts and showing us how dire the situation is for Deval, I am tired of Charley and Bob cheering the numbers. Yeah he is in the lead, but boy don’t those numbers suck.
People disagree about stuff. That’s not a shame.
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p>If you want to get into a deeper academic analysis of this, check out Kenneth J. Arrow’s work. He shows how the “will of the people” is often very difficult to ascertain.
And reported after.
60% of respondents haven’t heard of Baker, and 30% haven’t heard of Cahill. But everyone has heard of Patrick, and only a minority approve of Patrick.
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p>As voters learn about Cahill and Baker, some number of them will convert to one of these candidates, away from Patrick.
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p>The three candidates are polling in even 3rds.
So assume that of the 30% of the electorate who don’t know about Cahill 5% for Patrick, and 5% for Baker convert to Cahill. And of the 60% who are don’t know about Baker, 10% for Patrick, and 10% for Cahill switch to Baker. Then the poll would stack up:
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p>Baker 50%
Cahill 30%
Patrick 20%
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p>The number of voters who don’t know alternative candidates is probably the most important number in that poll. Deval is pretty worried and campaigning hard already.
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p>Patrick and Cahill have to define Baker negatively before he converts this 60% of voters to be positive for Baker. I expect the governor’s race will be nasty and negative.
All assumption, based on nothing but air.
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p>Maybe it plays out that way, maybe not. But this is a wish, not analysis.
Given their records, Baker and Cahill are as likely to lose votes as they are to gain them. You’re right, people don’t know Baker — they don’t know he was in charge of Admin and Finance during when the Big Dig was being financed. They don’t know that Baker’s been in charge of one of the state’s health care companies that’s robbed the state blind, forced tens of thousands of layoffs and refused treatment to god knows how many people. Cahill’s record isn’t much better, either.
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p>BTW: Your numbers, and corresponding assumptions, are absurd and not remotely based on science.
2 suggestions
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p>- in the “About” put in your personal bio. i’m sure you’ve chosen NOT to for good reason, and you want people to simply respond to the quality of the work. still, i’d encourage u to revisit that.
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p>- “We dig up the dirt so you don’t have to” – not a slogan that represents what you’re really doing. i didn’t see much dirt per se.
I see that and I think great, a Matt Drudge wannabe – no thanks!
But I post it when I find it. If you want dirt, sadly I’ve got plenty:
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p>http://massachusetts-election-…
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p>http://massachusetts-election-…
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p>http://massachusetts-election-…
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p>The blog is not just one person, and its not about me. But if you want to know – I’ve been a democratic voter all my life, but like a lot of people I’ve become increasinfly disillusioned by the MA democratic party.
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p>What happened to our progressive party? We have a legislature filled with 20+ year veterans who are beholden to special interests. They market themselves as progressives to the people, but then they:
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p>1. pass this casino bill without a public debate and with input from a ton of out of state interests and high priced lobbyists
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p>2. Legislators who style themselves progressive yet take in money and give favors to corporate interests. I’m amazed at how much money tobbacco lobbyists take in, and give out. There are probably 10 operating this year taking in something like $3m per year. They must be getting something for that money they spend.
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p>3. Are our democratic legislators so progressive if they cut local aid by 12% last year, and another 5% this year, while protecting programs for special interests?
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p>4. Where is the bill to allow towns to put their employees on GIC insurance?
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p>5. Why are legislators protecting the interests of lawyers over the people – like with Melanie’s Law and Jessica’s Law. Where is Alimony Reform? Shared Parenting? CORI Reform?
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p>6. Why does the speaker decide everything? Legislators should be more afraid of crossing the voters than the speaker.
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p>My goal with this site is just to educate voters about the lobbyist and special interest issue, and to let people know who a lot of these legislators really represent. I’d love to see a legislature full of independent progressives like Brownsberger and Garballey.
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p>But for me the issue is now beyond party. I’ll promote any candidate from any party who I think will be responsive to voters.
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p>I’d like to see Democrats get behind reform the way Republicans have. Voters are pretty unhappy and entrenched single party rule in MA is making difficult for progressive Democrats. If Democrats don’t wake up, the Republican are going to sweep in November. We may not like it, but that’s reality.
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p>We’re entering a new period in politics now that is going beyond party. Social networking and internet technology is letting candidates communicate better with voters. We’re seeing that with candidates like Smulowitz, Bielat, Perry etc.
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p>I’ve decided to do whatever I can to help that change because I want to see politicians more connected to voters than insider interests.
He said Charlie Baker boinked Christy Mihos. Heheheh.
He had an opportunity to have a very-winnable primary which would have focused the whole state’s attention on the Republicans, while Tim Cahill floundered in obscurity all summer long. Now, he gets to be the person who procedurally killed Mihos’s candidacy, the same guy who won around 10% of the vote in 2006, 10% of the population Baker may well have needed to finish ahead of Cahill.
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p>40% of the state is the governor’s base line.
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p>20% of the state is a Republican candidate’s baseline.
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p>That 10% of the state who really loved Mihos is gone for Baker.
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p>And Cahill’s currently got about 30% of the vote… and he’s not going to lose any, now that the summer’s free for him to be the big, surprising, surging summer candidate. Baker has no where to go and his campaign will be over before it ever really started.
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p>And the magic numbers will be 43-30-25 and 2 for the rainbowy-green thingies. Baker can have the satisfaction of knowing he was a better candidate for the years he always teased the idea of a run than he’s been actually declared in the race. Yikes.
There’s a lot simpler way to do the math.
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p>1) Only 33% of voters have formed an opinion about Baker. 67% have not. Yet he already has 27% of the vote.
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p>2) If Baker only got the votes of a mere 1 out of 5 (20%) of the voters who haven’t formed an opinion of him yet, he’d be above 40% of the vote. (27% + (20% x 67%)= 40.4%)
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p>That’s a Baker win in a 3-way race.