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Poll puts Murray on top in lt. governor race

August 22, 2006 By smart-sexy--liberal

David A. Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said Mr. Murray’s poll success is largely the result of his strong appeal in his home region of Central Massachusetts. The poll showed Mr. Murray with 26 percent of the likely vote west of Worcester, while Ms. Goldberg got only 3 percent and Ms. Silbert, 1 percent in the region.

“He gained some regional traction,” Mr. Paleologos said. “If you look at what drove Murray’s numbers up, it was people responding in Worcester County and west.”

Mr. Paleologos noted, however, that the huge pool of undecided voters in the primary is still up for grabs. He said that Ms. Goldberg, who began a high-profile television advertising campaign over the weekend, has probably not yet begun to see the results of her ads.

The sampling of voters’ preferences in the lieutenant governor’s race four weeks before the Sept. 19 primary election was part of a bigger poll of 600 voters’ leanings in the six-person gubernatorial field.

That poll found that Christopher F. Gabrieli has leapfrogged former poll frontrunner Deval L. Patrick and early favorite Thomas F. Reilly in the governor’s race.

After spending more than $7 million, Mr. Gabrieli, a Boston venture capitalist, has built up a six-point lead over Mr. Patrick, with the support of 32 percent of likely voters in the party primary, the poll found.

Mr. Patrick, a lawyer and businessman, polled at 24 percent, and Mr. Reilly, the state’s attorney general, garnered 20 percent.

Mr. Paleologos, the poll director, said that Mr. Patrick, who also started a TV ad campaign over the weekend, may not have seen its results reflected in the poll yet. Mr. Gabrieli, on the other hand, who has been advertising heavily since June, has likely benefited from the cumulative results of the publicity, he said.

The 7NEWS/Suffolk poll also showed that Mr. Gabrieli would be the strongest candidate to defeat Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey in the final election in November. The poll revealed that Mr. Gabrieli would beat Ms. Healey by 21 percent, with Mr. Reilly beating her by 9 percent and Mr. Patrick overcoming the lieutenant governor by 8 percent.

Independent gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos did not exceed 10 percent of likely voters in any matchup. Green Rainbow Party nominee Grace Ross of Worcester did not top 2 percent in any of the general election matchups.

The poll was conducted from last Thursday through Monday. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

All 600 respondents said they were registered voters and had voted in the 2002 election for governor.

The 7NEWS/Suffolk University poll had Mr. Murray in first place with 11 percent, followed by former Brookline selectman Deborah B. Goldberg with 6 percent, and Andrea C. Silbert of Harwich, founder of a women’ entrepreneurial training center, with 5 percent.

Seventy-eight of the 369 potential voters polled indicated no preference for any of the three candidates.

David A. Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said Mr. Murray’s poll success is largely the result of his strong appeal in his home region of Central Massachusetts. The poll showed Mr. Murray with 26 percent of the likely vote west of Worcester, while Ms. Goldberg got only 3 percent and Ms. Silbert, 1 percent in the region.

“He gained some regional traction,” Mr. Paleologos said. “If you look at what drove Murray’s numbers up, it was people responding in Worcester County and west.”

Mr. Paleologos noted, however, that the huge pool of undecided voters in the primary is still up for grabs. He said that Ms. Goldberg, who began a high-profile television advertising campaign over the weekend, has probably not yet begun to see the results of her ads.

The sampling of voters’ preferences in the lieutenant governor’s race four weeks before the Sept. 19 primary election was part of a bigger poll of 600 voters’ leanings in the six-person gubernatorial field.

That poll found that Christopher F. Gabrieli has leapfrogged former poll frontrunner Deval L. Patrick and early favorite Thomas F. Reilly in the governor’s race.

After spending more than $7 million, Mr. Gabrieli, a Boston venture capitalist, has built up a six-point lead over Mr. Patrick, with the support of 32 percent of likely voters in the party primary, the poll found.

Mr. Patrick, a lawyer and businessman, polled at 24 percent, and Mr. Reilly, the state’s attorney general, garnered 20 percent.

Mr. Paleologos, the poll director, said that Mr. Patrick, who also started a TV ad campaign over the weekend, may not have seen its results reflected in the poll yet. Mr. Gabrieli, on the other hand, who has been advertising heavily since June, has likely benefited from the cumulative results of the publicity, he said.

The 7NEWS/Suffolk poll also showed that Mr. Gabrieli would be the strongest candidate to defeat Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey in the final election in November. The poll revealed that Mr. Gabrieli would beat Ms. Healey by 21 percent, with Mr. Reilly beating her by 9 percent and Mr. Patrick overcoming the lieutenant governor by 8 percent.

Independent gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos did not exceed 10 percent of likely voters in any matchup. Green Rainbow Party nominee Grace Ross of Worcester did not top 2 percent in any of the general election matchups.

The poll was conducted from last Thursday through Monday. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

All 600 respondents said they were registered voters and had voted in the 2002 election for governor.

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Comments

  1. sabutai says

    August 22, 2006 at 8:20 pm

    Sez Donald: “I’m Almost Within the Margin of Error!”
    Huey and Dewey Ecstatic, Louie Checks Into in Rehab

    <

    p>
    Also in this poll, a breakdwon in current support:

    <

    p>
    To Murray:

    • 7%=People from Worcester Who Like Their Mayor
    • 1%=Some of the People Who Saw Goldberg’s Convention Video
    • 1%=Former Cashiers and Baggers at Stop&Shop
    • 1%=People Named “Murray”

    <

    p>
    To Goldberg:

    • 3% The Goldberg Family and Former High-Level Employees
    • 1.9% Some People From Worcester Who Hate Their Mayor
    • 1% People Who Like The Color Red
    • .1% Fellow Millionaires

    <

    p>
    To Silbert:

    <

    ul>

  2. 2% People Who Actually Live in the Cape Yea rRound (non-millionaires)
  3. 1% Everyone Else Who Saw Goldberg’s Convention Video
  4. 1% People Named “Andrea”
  5. 1% Deval Patrick Supporters Who Believe That They’re Supposed to Support Silbert and Bonifaz, too.
  6. <

    p>
    Sorry to rain on your parade, but those numbers are too small to mean much…

    • michael-forbes-wilcox says

      August 22, 2006 at 9:20 pm

      In the same spirit:

      <

      p>
      78% undecided with a MOE of 43% means that as many as 121% of voters could actually be undecided.

      <

      p>
      Given that this same poll shows the Gabber in the lead, a result we all know is fatuous, I don’t think Tim’s supporters should take a lot of comfort from this, nor should Andrea’s supporters be discouraged.

      <

      p>
      I think this shows the weakness of the polling approach of giving people an “out” — not pinning them down to a choice. Perhaps it’s an accurate measure of people’s true feelings, but it doesn’t convey a lot of information about how people will actually vote.

      <

      p>
      It may very well be that 80% of Primary voters will make up their minds inside the voting booth — they are there to vote for Deval or some local candidate, but this polling technique is pretty useless at predicting how that crowd will end up voting… imho

      • rollbiz says

        August 23, 2006 at 12:53 am

        I totally concur. Can we all just agree on the fact that no one follows the LG race, and that we won’t know who is the candidate of choice until 9/19 late night?

        • hlpeary says

          August 23, 2006 at 9:06 am

          All a poll, any poll, tells us is that IF the election were held TODAY, this is how it would probably turn out….in this case, Democrats have nothing to be sad about because by the looks a Gabrieli/Murray ticket would crush Healey-Hillman…they would combine to have the money, the message, the geographic balance, the political smarts, the energy, the credibility…not only to win back the corner office but to get something done there, too!

          • slushpuppy says

            August 23, 2006 at 10:38 am

            “combine to have the money, the message, the geographic balance, the political smarts, the energy, the credibility…not only to win back the corner office but to get something done there, too!”

            • hlpeary says

              August 23, 2006 at 1:56 pm

              The number of votes from Winter residents on Cape Cod do not compete with all of Worcester County…and even though Andrea is from Brookline originally Deb has pretty much overtaken the Newton Brookline area…Andrea made some inroads in Harvard Square, but Mayor Reeves and Anthony Galluchio are with Murray..no matter,Gabrieli will have the Greater Boston map covered…Murray brongs Central and Western mass (Hillman will not have it to give to Healey)

              <

              p>
              Andrea is a good woman, but I’m afraid Deb is pushing her out of the race as I type.

              • slushpuppy says

                August 23, 2006 at 3:50 pm

                I agree with you that Murray would provide a very nice geographic balance.  I should’ve replaced “geographic” with “gender” and escaped your rebuttal.  I agree that Goldberg has made this a much harder race for Silbert to win (Murray’s lucky she’s on the ballot), but I see parallels with the 2002 treasurer’s race… where the winner faced someone with the same last name, nevermind same gender.  Feels like the Gov & LG races will come down to the wire… which is why, instead of relying on polls/ads/blogs/news, we hold elections.

      • cos says

        August 24, 2006 at 1:36 am

        I think this shows the weakness of the polling approach of giving people an “out” — not pinning them down to a choice. Perhaps it’s an accurate measure of people’s true feelings, but it doesn’t convey a lot of information about how people will actually vote.

        No, it’s a strength.  Most polls do far too much to pin people down to a choice – and who knows, maybe even this poll did a little of that.  We end up getting very soft numbers that mislead us about the actual support candidates have.  The less a poll tries to pin people down, the more accurate the results.

        <

        p>
        The weakness lies not in a poll not pinning people down, the weakness lies in interpreting polls as prognostications, and in giving polls too much credence and too much hype for all the wrong reasons.  The press and most people don’t pay attention to the things polls are really useful for, and too much attention to the things they’re not as useful for.

        <

        p>
        The truth is that most people who will vote in the primary don’t know who they will vote for LG.  A poll that told us otherwise would be “weak”.

  7. hlpeary says

    August 23, 2006 at 4:07 pm

    In an ideal world, reporters would cover candidates and issues and not pay much attention to polls, blogs, ads, etc…but the polls, blogs, ads, etc. are easy to cover, quick little articles spoon-fed to you by the candidates themselves…so no need to break a sweat covering politics anymore…in an ideal world, voters would take the time to find out who they were voting for and make serious considerations before casting a vote…but that is not the world we are in…

    <

    p>
    I laugh when the nightly news “reports” on politics by “covering” the latest candidate advertisement! Are we selecting an ad agency or a candidate to help run the state?

    <

    p>
    That’s not even a hard question…an ad agency of course!…What do we expect from media outlets that put a pedophile wingnut from a 10 year old murder case ahead of the soldiers and civilians dying in Iraq and Afghanistan or the people of New Orleans who STILL remain abandoned by the government. 

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