Yeah, yeah, it’s early, polls don’t mean anything at this point, blah blah blah. Still, Tom Reilly can’t be too psyched about the latest UMass-Lowell poll, which shows that his previously-solid leads over both Deval Patrick in the primary and Kerry Healey in the general election have evaporated. Here’s the Globe’s helpful graphic of the biggest results:
The poll also shows Patrick and Healey in a dead-heat general election, with the result within the poll’s margin of error.
A couple of observations. First, this poll is very good news for Deval Patrick. Perhaps most importantly, his “Deval who?” numbers seem finally to be dropping – only 20% claim to be “undecided” in a Democratic primary between Reilly and Patrick. Of course it’s also good news for him that he seems to have converted some Reilly voters, but to me anyway, it’s actually more important that his campaign is starting to reach non-political junkies.
The poll is also good news for Kerry Healey, who for whatever reason is making a much stronger showing against Tom Reilly. This may be more because of what Reilly has done than anything Healey has done (since she hasn’t done much lately), but nonetheless, she comes out of this looking pretty good.
Christy Mihos at this point appears only to play a spoiler role – where he was included in the questions, he tended to siphon off votes from Healey that resulted in Democratic wins. But Mihos really hasn’t started spending money yet, so I wouldn’t put much stock in those numbers.
Overall, the poll seems to confirm that Tom Reilly’s stumbles over the last few weeks have resonated beyond the world of those addicted to politics (81% of the poll’s respondents claimed to be either “very” or “somewhat” familiar with the St. Fleuriasco, with 56% of respondents saying it would make them less likely to vote for Reilly). And yes, there’s plenty of time for Reilly to recover. But he’d better start thinking about what, exactly, a “recovery” would involve – it’s going to have to be more than not screwing up again. It seems fair to me to say that, having made so many major errors early on, he can no longer coast on his warchest and his assumed backing of the insiders and the party establishment. He has to give the voters a reason to vote for him. He’s no longer the default choice. And that’s probably a good thing for him, since beating Kerry Healey may not actually be so easy.
Excellent.
Anybody astute in political prognostication will tell you that this is the key polling number, especially so early in the race. . Reilly still maintains very strong favorables. 53% vs 56% reported in the last poll. It means that average voter still likes him. His judgement lapse was reflected on some of the other numbers but this proves he has plenty of time to rebound. Don’t break out the white wine yet
http://www.uml.edu/umasspoll/winter06_survey.html
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There are some interesting issue questions as well.
about these early numbers but this is disappointing.
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If the candidates for Lt Governor in the Democratic primary were Timothy Murray, Debra Goldberg, Sam Kelly and Andrea Silbert for whom would you vote?
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Goldberg 12
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Murray 11
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Kelly 2
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Silbert 4
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Undecided/DK 71
… Among the 71% undecided.
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I have strong leanings, but I’ve not yet seen one Lt. Gov. candidate “wow” me in the way that, say, Deval Patrick has as a gubernatorial candidate.
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But there’s still a lot of time between now and the first weekend in June, when I’ll actually have to have made up my mind (at least for the time being).
I am leaning one way, but am open to be convinced of any of the other 3 ways before June 3.
in light of the Suffolk poll done earlier this month just prior to the caucuses.
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In that poll, the raw numbers looked like this:
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Goldberg 6%
Silbert 5%
Murray 4%
Kelley 4%
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Now, after the caucuses (to which few of these pollee-s probably went) but after more attention was paid to the race and during which Murray’s and Goldberg’s names were featured most often in the press, we’re at this point. Unclear, however, whether the pollster here provided info to the pollee-s about each of the candidates. In the prior Suffolk poll, the numbers were clear after people were educated on the candidates, showing Silbert with a lead in each of the categories.
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These polls are so unreliable at this stage, they’re not worth putting stock in — except when you know about the methodology, as in the education piece Suffolk did. (Does anyone know if there were more ?’s asked by the UML poll?)
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It’ll probably be this seesaw for the next few months until the convention, since no one will be paying attention except delegates and other insiders. Remember, though, that the winner here will likely only get about 35% of the primary voters to support her/him – a couple hundred thousand people at most.