Governor Patrick’s up 8 points over Charlie the Unicorn and 10 points over Tim Cahill, even with Jill Stein doing her best to give this election to Charlie. The headline? “Poll says race is between Cahill and Baker”.
I would like to suggest that perhaps the Herald needs to hire reporters who passed 1st grade math.
http://news.bostonherald.com/n…
Please share widely!
johnny-reason says
The poll is loaded with bad news for Deval. Its about trends and negatives. Deval is on the wrong side of both.
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p>It’s also not just the Herald that thinks Deval is toast.
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p>http://www1.whdh.com/features/…
kbusch says
Conventional wisdom is that an incumbent who polls less than 50% is in serious trouble. Usually, challengers not incumbents pick up votes as election day approaches.
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p>The Patrick campaign machinery had really better find the accelerator pedal.
patricklong says
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com…
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p>Is the Gov in trouble? Yes. But these results are the non-disastrous type as long as it remains a 3-candidate race. In a typical race, the incumbent usually gains more ground between the early polls and the final results than the challenger does.
stomv says
The fact is, it’s unlikely that it will be a competitive three man race. One of the three is likely to fall behind (and it ain’t Deval).
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p>The question is: when Cahill falls back, will he shed votes to Patrick or Baker? This pollster clearly believes that Cahill will shed votes to Baker (or Baker to Cahill).
david says
to be fair to Jessica Van Sack at the Herald, what she writes is not all that different from the bizarre press release put out by Suffolk, or the truly incendiary quotes given by Suffolk pollster David Paleologos. From the Herald story:
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p>
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p>That is perhaps the strangest quote I’ve ever seen from a pollster.
johnd says
Jan 10
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p>Jan 12
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p>
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p>Jan 16
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p>
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p>Jan 18
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p>
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p>Jan 19 (need a link?)
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p>
paulsimmons says
You should either cite polls in the aggregate or line-graph results from the same pollster over x period of time. Anything else gets fuzzed through different sampling techniques, question design, etc; and apples-to-oranges screws up your model.
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p>The charts on Pollster.com are a good example of how this is done.
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p>A poll can be honestly designed and still be an outlier.
johnd says
and simply referencing the data?
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p>My point was a poll today showing Deval in the lead and Charlie Baker and/or Tim Cahill trailing may be meaningless if the trend is moving in a direction which will overtake Deval at some point.
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p>Thanks for the pointer.
paulsimmons says
There is a human tendency among activists (right, left, reform-Druid) to kill the messenger in the face of bad news, even when the pollster’s client is ostensibly nonpartisan.
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p>Further complicating this is the fact that polling is still an applied art in matters of sampling, question composition, etc. While the owners of (for example) 538.com and Pollster.com may tend to liberal-progressive, they concede the limits of their profession, and don’t let their political beliefs distort their empiricism.
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p>…which is why I prefer using single or aggregate trendlines (with a marked preference for the latter, when possible) when I want to make a point regarding public opinion.
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p>Failing that, I use sources (e.g. Gallup, Pew, UNH, Suffolk), with reputations for good methodology and honest results.
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p>I repeat: poll credibility largely depends on the reputation of the pollster, not the political affiliation of the clients.
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p>It’s a good rebuttal to the “lies, damn lies, and statistics” objection.
johnny-reason says
I appreciate your expertise. Could you tell me what your opinion is of pollster David Paleologos? Thanks in advance.
paulsimmons says
…who has worked for Democratic, Republican and nonpartisan media clients from an academic base at Suffolk University. An example of his credibility within the business is that a poll he did in 2002 in and of itself drove Jane Swift out of politics.
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p>It resulted in Governor Romney, but that was our fault, not the pollster’s.
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p>As a Democrat, I find it fascinating that winning strategies (reconstituting the alliances between liberals and progressives across class lines) are implicit in his crosstabs, and almost always ignored by our statewide candidates.
af says
There is nothing in the poll that signals that the direction of support will continue, culminating with Baker or Cahill overtaking Patrick. Just because that was the pattern in the Brown/Coakley race, does not mean it will be there same, here. That’s not to say that additional polls, further along in time, might show that. Only now, it hasn’t.
sue-kennedy says
Deval has dropped 3 points and Baker picked up about 10. So lets ignore the trend that Patrick is dropping in the polls and Baker has the momentum. It is historically difficult for an incumbent to pick up any meaningful support. Name recognition is not a factor, voters are aware of the incumbent’s record and can answer the “are you better off than 4 years ago” question.
So the best Patrick can hope for is remaining about the same. (Yes, ignore the trend that Patrick is actually dropping for a minute and lets pretend that there is a chance he can hold a 33%).
When have you ever seen a 3 way race where a campaign won with 33%?
Cahill did not leave his job and party because polls showed that Deval had a chance of being re-elected.
The discussion on how to move the Democrat Party forward has mostly centered on strategy so far, and not the more serious issue of how we have abandoned our core principles and core base.
smadin says
your assumption that there will be no significant differences between how Coakley campaigned and now Patrick will campaign is totally fact-based and reasonable.
johnd says
My point is someone’s “lead” in a poll at this stage is somewhat meaningless and the trend is far more meaningful. I made no assumptions about anyone’s campaigning.
smadin says
Polls are (more or less) good indicators of how things currently stand. For the numbers to change, the situation has to change. Coakley’s 9-point early lead over Brown evaporated for a number of reasons, but two of the major ones were that Brown ran a vigorous, engaged campaign and Coakley did not. To suggest that Patrick’s 8-point lead in this poll is meaningless by explicitly drawing a comparison to the Senate race necessarily constitutes an argument that a similar trend will be at work here, and that would require that Patrick run a lackluster campaign while his opponent(s) are more active.
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p>And, look, I understand that most conservatives have some difficulty accurately remembering anything that happened before January 20, 2009, but one thing I think is clear to those of us in the reality-based community is that Patrick knows how to run a strong campaign.
johnd says
smadin says
Trying to predict the outcome of the election was not my point, and if you think it was I can only assume you didn’t read my comments very carefully.
hrs-kevin says
you should be able to clean up in the stock market 😉
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p>Trends aren’t really any more trustworthy or meaningful than the polls themselves.
paulsimmons says
… a la Warren Buffet, one can clean up in the stock market by exploiting a broader trend.
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p>In the same sense, a campaign can mesh field operations with comprehensive voter ID, strategic voter targeting, and equally strategic GOTV to exploit a trend.
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p>In both cases, one presumes having the resources to exploit the trend in the first place. It’s all academic if I can’t afford the shares.
kbusch says
Charlie Baker’s appeal is certainly not that he’s regular guy who drives about in high-odometer truck. His appeal is even somewhat meritocratic: “I’m really smart and can do better.”
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p>I have no idea how Tim Cahill would campaign. It would seem to me that he’d better be ultra-charismatic or he won’t have a campaign organization. The party of Un is pretty disorganized.
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p>That certainly suggests a very different dynamic from Coakley-Scott.
paulsimmons says
…which is how Weld, a smug Tory to the core, could successfully run a populist campaign.
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p>And Cahill’s people seem to have a limited talent for field organizing as of this writing.
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p>Coakley-Scott was very different: a pure exercise in political malpractice on the part of Democratic candididates and consultants alike, starting in the pre-primary period and never ending.
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p>However, one should note that hostility to Patrick is getting Pavlovian, and (as occured in the SpSen final), any viable opponent will get sub rosa support from some Democratic incumbents, based on two reasons:
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p>They hate Patrick’s guts, and
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p>They’ll get away with it.
charley-on-the-mta says
he “wasn’t smart enough” to know whether global warming was real or not.
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p>He definitely wasn’t smart enough to give a simple freakin’ answer to a simple question.
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p>There’s no question that Patrick faces some institutional hostility, esp. from Terry Murray/Baddour/etc. and some progs who are now feeling pretty cool to him. Only one thing for him to do … use it to his advantage.
paulsimmons says
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p>Possibly.
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p>However, the only real organizing I’m seeing right now is a generic, non candidate-centered, anti-Patrick movement by rank-and-file labor. If the current State Committee trainings expand their warm-body pool beyond the existing Democratic activist community on Patrick’s behalf, that might change.
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p>Barring that it’s Yogi Berra time – deja view all over again.
doug-rubin says
Not sure where you are looking, but there is a lot of organizing going on around the state in support of Deval Patrick and Tim Murray. Some amazing supporters are working very hard to help us win in November.
david-whelan says
Doug:
What happened to the Governor’s promise to fund all communities at 17.5% of foundation budget under ch 70 effective fy 2011? Just another broken promise? Still 60 communities getting screwed! Also what’s up with fixing that charter funding formula?
doug-rubin says
Gov. Patrick has made it a priority to protect education funding in the midst of one of the worst economic downturns…he understands that despite a deep decline in revenue, our children need us to continue to invest in them. Seems to me holding ch. 70 funding harmless in middle of cuts everywhere else shows his commitment to this issue. Plus, the passage of his education reform bill will lead to improvements throughout our public education system.
david-whelan says
Governor Deval Patrick on Chapter 70
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p>
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p>Candidate Patrick on Charters
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p>Candidate Patrick made the below comments relative to the charter funding formula at a MA Gubernatorial debate on Sept 13, 2006. So how does the Governor reconcile his comments relative to the charter funding formula with the gaping hole that charter funding is creating within municipal budgets like Gloucester, Swampscott, etc.? The answer is that he cannot reconcile his prior statements with today’s reality. He also has lost control of Paul Reville and Mitch Chester. Words have meaning!
cap charters until funding is reformed
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p>GABRIELI: Tom and I support charter schools because we see them as an opportunity for innovation and choice. Deval, I think you’re wrong to refuse these kids the choices that every other parent seeks for themselves to go to a great school.
PATRICK: Chris, you’re wrong that I don’t support charter schools. As important as charter schools are and as helpful as they are, we need to come up with a different and better funding mechanism before we raise the cap. REILLY: Deval, if there was a moratorium proposed by the legislature, to curb any growth in charter schools, would you sign that legislation? I wouldn’t. I think Chris would veto it.
GABRIELI: I would veto it.
REILLY: Would you veto it?
PATRICK: Yes, but listen, we’ve got to be serious about funding. The formula works in theory, but in real life, there are real tensions between real families and that is not community building and that is not advancing ed reform.
REILLY: It’s a matter of giving parents choice, give them a choice.
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p>Source: MA gubernatorial debate on CBS4 news / Sep 13, 2006
david-whelan says
Try responding like a human being instead of reading Deval Patrick talking points. Be specific. Why did Deval break promises over and over?
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p>In July 2008, Live Bloging Governor Partick’s Town Hall in Salem
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p>http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/s…
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p>
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p>Just another broken promise this time made by both Deval Patrick and Tim Murray.
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p>Why does the economy have to be good to start the study? It takes years to do these studies and the time to start was when there was a recognition that a problem existed. Deval Patrick did zip, zero, nadda, nothing to look at alternative ways to fund public education and charter schools. He promised as a candidate that the charter funding formula HAD TO take into account the affect that the charter had on sending districts. How does that reconcile with Gloucester? As Governor Patrick he did nothing. As a candidate in 2010 his budget includes funding for what is referred to as an adequacy study, but why the wait? Why take the three yrs in between elections off relative to ed funding issues? The answer is because it is hard. It’s also hard laying off teachers and gutting a public school system.
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p>Truly a campaign issue.
doug-rubin says
Look, it’s clear you have your talking points and your issue, and you are entitled to your opinion. But I think you neglect to factor in the economic crisis and the impact it has had on the state budget. Given that, and the cuts that had to be made to balance the budget, I think the Governor’s record in support of public education funding is second to none. And as you acknowledge, he has included funding for an adequacy study in the most recent budget.
david-whelan says
Yes I have my talking points but I know what I am talking about. You sould like you are reading from index cards.
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p>The time for an adequacy study was two to three years ago. The study that the Governor is proposing will take two years and will be done by the same clowns that rammed a charter school down the throats of the people in Gloucester. Thanks.
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p>As for supporting ed funding in bad economic times, Deval Patrick has known of the issues with my community for three years and has done nothing. As noted in my spreadsheet there are many communities like mine that have not gotten the support of Deval Patrick on ed funding matters.
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p>So have a wonderful evening and know that we will talk again. Oh, by the way, I am right and I am not going away.
doug-rubin says
Of course – when you make a point, it’s brilliant. When I try to make a point, I’m “reading from index cards.”
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p>Kind of tough to have a real conversation with those ground rules. Too bad, because its an important issue and I think we both have a point of view worth discussing.
david-whelan says
I have been at this issue for three years. I have watched my school district get screwed time and again and then this year, the 5th yr in a 5 yr phase in, the promise is broken. Ask around and you will find that I have spoken to lots of folks and the answer was always the same. “Be patient, the formula is being fixed over a five year period.” Cool.
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p>I hope you will forgive me if I trust no one involved with the Patrick administration. You also might want to ask around if you think my promise to make this a campaign issue is not serious.
kbusch says
for you to be civil?
david-whelan says
Civil is Patrick adminstration folks answering questions when asked. Civil is actually having Rubin understand issues that he comments on. Civil is not breaking promises.
kbusch says
Yes, being civil is too much to ask.
david-whelan says
http://www.thebostonchannel.co…
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p>Cut, paste, and listen!
At approximately 5:40 of the channel 5 interview, the discussion turns to charters and charter funding. Candidate Patrick says the following relative to charter funding: “We have a funding mechanism that is starving both charter schools and district schools.” So what happened? He did NOTHING to solve this inequity over the first few years of his administration. Why is Reville so off message if, in fact, this is still Governor Patrick’s view? When did Patrick’s policy change? Candidate Patrick meet Governor Patrick. Governor Patrick meet the kids in Gloucester and Swampscott that are stuck in underfunded “traditional” public schools.
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p>So here’s the tough question. Now that your are again Candidate Patrick, why should anyone believe a damn word that you say?
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p>The time to study formulas was years ago. The problem with such a study is that it is hard. You were elected to do the hard stuff. Ignoring this issue by changing policy was easier than telling the Globe, Boston Foundation, Paul Reville, and Mitch Chester to back off. Too bad the kids and taxpayers got screwed.
paulsimmons says
<
p>Yeah, but are there enough of them in the right places to overcome the, let us say, disenchantment felt by many erstwhile supporters?
doug-rubin says
Are there some supporters who are, as you say, “disenchanted? Of course – every elected official faces the same thing. But there are also many people who were not involved in the 2006 campaign who have volunteered their time to help the campaign already. I think if you asked our field team, they would say they feel they are ahead of where they were at a similar time in the 2006 campaign.
christopher says
…is keep giving that excellent speech he gave at lunch at DCI yesterday, but to the voting masses, not just the activists.
paulsimmons says
The marginals and crosstabs will be released then.
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p>Until then, this is much ado about embargoed information, as well as blaming the messenger for what may well be accurate but disasterous information for Patrick.
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p>That said, my inference from the Suffolk press release was that the trend lines looked bad for the Governor, which is probably true irrespective of the polling shop.
johnny-reason says
This “anybody but Deval” voter wants you to laugh straight through November.
patrick says
I was surprised that there wasn’t a general election match up that included Christy Mihos. Isn’t it standard to do multiple scenarios when there are primaries involved?
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p>I also found the quote from Paleologos about the race to be incredibly odd.
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p>
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p>Why would Baker or Cahill emerge? This isn’t a primary where one of those guys wins. They could maintain their respective percentages until the end of the general.
paulsimmons says
…of the full marginals and crosstabs, but my understanding is that the poll did question Republicans and R-leaning Unenrolleds about their primary choices, with the data indicating that Mihos is toast.
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p>My purely unscientific back-of-the-envelope assessment concurs. For reasons too lengthy to post here, Mihos seems to have devolved to vanity candidate status.
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p>
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p>In many ways the final election dynamic is (right now, at least) exactly like a contested multi-challenger primary. with an unpopular incumbent.
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p>To explain this fully would take something more of monograph than a blog comment; but suffice it to say that Massachusetts is (and has been for twenty years) functionally a no-party State, with parenthetical “D”s functioning as labels of convenience, and many elected officials profoundly indifferent to the party affiliation of statewide officials.
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p>The latter dynamic is playing out as I type this.
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p>
patrick says
What I meant was that while they polled Baker in a general matchup, they did not poll Mihos in a general matchup, such as:
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p>Patrick
Mihos
Cahill
Stein
paulsimmons says
Pure speculation on my part: A polling question in a general matchup might have been considered an unnecessary expense to the client, premised on a Mihos vanity candidacy.
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p>Stein, while equally a vanity candidate, could pull enough progressive votes to make a difference in a tight race.
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p>Again, this is speculation. For all I know there may be questions about Mihos in the embargoed material.
nodrumlins says
Only some of the marginals and crosstabs have been embargoed, most of them were released.
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p>The voters sampled went 49-36 for Scott Brown (as opposed to 52-47 in the actual election) and they were 69% over age 45. Looks like Western Mass and Suffolk County were also slightly underrepresented.
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p>If Patrick has an eight-point lead with a group that went for Brown by eight points more that the general electorate, I’d say he’s in better shape than even this poll indicates.
nodrumlins says
http://www.suffolk.edu/researc…
paulsimmons says
Being a naturally paranoid sort, I wondered – and still wonder – why there was a partial embargo in the first place. The Western Mass, Suffolk, and age sampling points that you mentioned might be part of the model; all that can wait until I parse the complete poll.
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p>There are also nuances to be considered, not all of which are necessarily reflected in the model. For example:
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p>Coakley’s geographic base was in Western Mass, which is historically somewhat hospitable to Republicans. Will the chronically bad economy there adversely affect the vote in a governor’s race?
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p>Ditto regarding the Depression level of blue-collar unemployment in the state.
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p>How will the current crash-and-burn of Mihos affect a populist political environment?
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p>How will the field dynamic be affected by elected officials hostile to Patrick (as opposed to indifferent to Coakley)?
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p>Granted, polls are, at best snapshots in time, and IMHO best viewed in the aggregate, but I’m gonna have fun with this one.
david-whelan says
Note that based on 2010 data, anyone that lives in one of these communities loses approximately the value in ch 70 aid in the last column. Further understand that the 5 yr phase in was a compromise between fixing an inequity in 2007 vs. phasing in the fix over 5 yrs. Further note that communities that were overfunded were to be phased back to what was considered equity over 5 yrs. Your ability to read talking points is awesome. A deal is a deal and this Governor is breaking a promise made to approximately 60 communities. Because of formating challenges note that the % column is the 2010 % the referenced district received and the last column is the value of Deval Patrick’s “broken promise” to each community. Note that Patrick’s plan is to match 2010 ch 70 dollars and ignores the fact that 2011 was to be the final yr of the phase in.
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p>Truly a campaign issue.
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p> %/Deficit
ANDOVER 13.8% (1,942,546)
AVON 17.0% (26,109)
BARNSTABLE 14.9% (1,317,388)
BEDFORD 13.0% (1,031,981)
BOYLSTON 15.2% (69,391)
BROOKLINE 13.2% (2,379,861)
BURLINGTON 16.4% (374,527)
CAMBRIDGE 14.0% (2,298,246)
CANTON 14.0% (937,739)
CARLISLE 14.9% (148,957)
CHATHAM 14.0% (172,354)
COHASSET 14.7% (337,701)
CONCORD 14.1% (517,252)
CONCORD CARLISLE 14.8% (342,082)
DANVERS 14.5% (950,686)
DEDHAM 15.4% (530,911)
DOVER 13.1% (211,677)
DOVER SHERBORN 14.4% (312,201)
DUXBURY 16.5% (273,556)
EASTHAM 16.6% (18,678)
EDGARTOWN 13.8% (121,466)
FALMOUTH 15.5% (650,940)
HADLEY 14.3% (171,601)
HARWICH 14.5% (373,251)
IPSWICH 15.9% (263,701)
LEXINGTON 13.5% (2,199,996)
LINCOLN 13.0% (259,543)
LINCOLN SUDBURY 16.4% (175,950)
LONGMEADOW 17.0% (130,083)
MANCHESTER ESSEX 15.5% (222,315)
MARION 14.0% (115,611)
MATTAPOISETT 14.1% (135,624)
NAHANT 14.8% (83,951)
NANTUCKET 13.2% (460,214)
NEEDHAM 16.0% (670,241)
NEWBURYPORT 17.2% (53,313)
NEWTON 13.4% (4,384,584)
NORTH ANDOVER 16.7% (300,578)
NORWELL 16.4% (209,071)
NORWOOD 15.6% (625,420)
ORLEANS 15.8% (26,660)
ROCKPORT 16.6% (74,752)
ROWE 16.2% (5,802)
SAUGUS 15.5% (523,801)
SHERBORN 13.1% (175,153)
STONEHAM 15.0% (574,269)
SWAMPSCOTT 14.7% (526,351)
TISBURY 13.6% (114,598)
TRURO 14.8% (47,979)
WAKEFIELD 16.7% (237,153)
WALTHAM 15.1% (1,178,942)
WATERTOWN 13.9% (872,013)
WAYLAND 14.1% (788,174)
WELLFLEET 13.9% (40,402)
WESTBOROUGH 14.8% (801,736)
WESTON 12.4% (1,047,962)
WESTWOOD 14.8% (732,584)
WOBURN 15.1% (1,020,622)
stomv says
and I don’t quite understand your post. Is your claim that Weston, Dover, Carlisle, Sherborn, Wayland, Duxbury, Lexington, Concord, Needham, Bedford, Andover, Norwell, and Westwood (amongst others) aren’t getting enough money from the state? I single those communities out because they all rank in the top 10% of household income amongst MA’s cities and towns (MA locations by income).
sabutai says
Not a lot of poor towns on that list, far as I can see…