Very, very good news for Deval Patrick in the latest Suffolk/7News poll. The numbers generally support the findings of the Rasmussen poll that came out a couple of weeks ago.
500 registered voters, MOE +/- 4.4%, 95% confidence level.
May 20-23 (Feb. 21-24)
Patrick: 42 (33) +9
Baker: 29 (25) +4
Cahill: 14 (23) -9
Stein: 8 (3) +5
Undecided: 7 (16) -9
Also important (and maybe moreso than horse race numbers at this stage) are the fav/unfav ratings (available here as a PDF).
Patrick: 45/46 (38/50) +7/-4
Baker: 20/17 (18/12) +2/+5
Cahill: 22/34 (31/16) -9/+18
Patrick’s numbers are all moving the right direction – up in horse race, up in fav, down in unfav. Baker is getting some positive and some negative movement (the uptick in unfav), and still has a massive “who?” response (31%). Cahill gets nothing but bad news, probably in part because of the RGA’s dive-bombing of him.
There certainly continue to be danger signs for Patrick in this poll. The right direction/wrong track breakdown is still unhelpful (36/52), and the “reelect/give someone else a chance” breakdown is strangely disconnected from the horse race numbers (33/55). And if Cahill continues to fade, that is likely to boost Baker’s numbers as Cahill becomes a less plausible “not Deval” vote. So there is much to do. Still, things look markedly better for Patrick than they did a couple of months ago.
Here’s some free advice to all the candidates. Deval: keep doing what you are doing, especially the hectic campaign schedule. The more you get out there and pitch your message in person, the more those numbers will keep creeping up. Charlie: stop sucking as a candidate. The more stupid things you say in public, the more the pundits will see you as a not-ready-for-prime-time wonk who never should have gotten into electoral politics — and the easier it will be to put the ads together. Tim: … well, I got nothing.
that our friend Rob at RMG had a rather different view of where the race stands.
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p>From that, one has the sense that the hard-core Bakerites think things are going a lot better than they are, both in terms of Baker’s popularity and Patrick’s lack of same. And that’s a bad sign for Baker.
other RMGers were pretty darn close.
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is surprisingly high. I think it unlikely that it will last. First, she needs her 10,000 signatures, which as we have learned is a significant hurdle. Second, this poll comes on the heels of Grace Ross failing to make the primary ballot, and some disappointed lefties are still actively looking for somewhere other than Deval to go. Now, nearly six months out, it’s easy to tell a pollster that they’ll vote for Stein. As things come down to the wire, some (though not all) of those voters will vote practically rather than purely ideologically, and will back Patrick. At the end of the day, assuming she gets on the ballot, I cannot see Stein topping 5% — and most of those voters would stay home if Stein weren’t in the race, so they don’t really drain votes from Patrick.
I would tend to agree with most of David’s analysis with a few caveats.
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p>I still think the Governor is very vulnerable and while I agree he should keep doing what he has been doing lately to get better, I fear that as the general election heats up and Baker becomes more viable it will really become a two man race. Cahill’s support is dropping, the more people learn about him the less they like him, Baker on the other hand is still an unknown quantity and the more people hear about him the more the numbers will change. So far that means change in the wrong direction for him, he has run a surprisingly incompetent and inept campaign. But if he starts talking about his personal story (the recent Globe piece on his being a big brother would make for a good ad for one), his record, and the positive things he wants to do for MA the better he is. He can take down Deval later. In the meantime if he allows Cahill to be the attack dog a la Christie 06 on Healy, he can look above the fray and people can gravitate to him. His focusing on Cahill in his attacks is an asinine strategy that is bound to only raise awareness of the one opponent he hopes should go away, while also making him look like an ass.
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p>He also needs to get over his allergy to retail politics.
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p>Also the Green numbers are interesting, and I would actually posit that for them to be high this early is a good indicator that people are aware of Stein and some are gravitating towards her. It is also a sign Patrick has not done a good enough job consolidating his base before the general and a lot of progressives are visibly upset.
That’s what Stein said to do (for Shannon) last time she ran. I expect her to say it again.
Stein instructed voters to vote for Shannon O’Brien in 2002? That’s news to me. I was part of that campaign, and a Dem. Party operative called the day before the election, wondering what we wanted in exchange for Jill to hold a press conference to publicly instruct her supporters to vote for O’Brien. I told the guy (who wouldn’t identify himself other than to say he was fairly high up in the Dem. Party) to get Speaker Finneran and a hundred reps. on the State House steps declaring their support for the Clean Elections Law. The conversation didn’t go much further.
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p>The AFL-CIO, on the other hand, went door-to-door telling people to vote O’Brien instead of Stein, and the uber-execrable Joan Vennochi weighed in with her advice to Bay State liberals that they should take a hot bath and eat some Godiva chocolate if they wanted to feel better about themselves – and vote for O’Brien instead of Stein.
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p>Stein is running to give people a chance to vote for real change – change we desperately need. She’s not going to turn around and tell them to vote for “more of the same” at the 11th hour, although you seem to find it reassuring to believe that.
Search for “A VOTE FOR STEIN IS A VOTE FOR ROMNEY
The Boston Globe (Boston, MA) | October 31, 2002”
You are right, I don’t know what she’ll do this time.
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p>As you probably know, Stein’s candidacy this time around was originally predicated on having IRV on the ballot.
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p>She would have then ran a campaign to maximize support for the reform, highlighting the unfairness and perversity of a system that penalizes candidates like her and the voters who would like to vote for her. It was a pretty smart strategem.
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p>Unfortunately the measure did not qualify (something I am sorry to say the Greens have a problem with going back to the spectacular failure of the Stein campaign to claim its Clean Elections funds in 02–now that would have been a game changer!). The unfair perversity still applies, and will keep Stein in the low double digits on election day.
Maybe this is a polling fluke – but if it’s not – it’s 8%! Thats pretty significant support for a candidate that has 85% of unheard/undecided.
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p>Thats more than 50% support among people who have an opinion on her.
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p>There is no way that 8% of voters are “people who would have stayed home”.
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p>I think this shows that there is a group of progressive voters out there who are very unhappy with Patrick, and state govenment generally. People this year are looking for alternatives to incumbents.
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p>Jill Stein is a serious candidate who will have a serious impact on this race. It will be interesting to see Patrick trying to marginalize her.
Jill was polling at 7% going into election day, ended up with 3.5% of the vote. I know many people switched to Shannon O’Brien in the last few days to vote against Romney.
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p>I’m a big fan of Jill Stein, but this time there’s actually a strong progressive Democrat running, so I don’t expect her to end up much higher than that.
Why he ever decided that running to the right of the Republicans was a smart strategy in Massachusetts, I’ll never know. Scott Brown beating Martha Coakley isn’t any more a predictor for the future than when Atlanta swept the Celtics in the regular season.
Tim for Guv was excellent for Patrick, and those numbers look terrible. Hopefully T4G will stabilize and then slowly erode Baker.
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p>The 8% for Stein is fascinating. How many of those are potential Patrick voters I don’t know, but I like it nonetheless.
Aren’t you the same ‘stomv’ who had this to say in response to my post a couple weeks ago about the worthlessness of Rasmussen polls that don’t track Jill Stein?
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p>”To put it another way, based on her 2002 candidacy, how, pray tell, will Jill Stein factor in this race?”
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p>Maybe you can answer your own question, once you’re through being fascinated.
The two things aren’t locked at the hip.
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p>It’s completely reasonable to get 8% in a single poll 5.5 months before the election and still not factor in the race.
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p>Pssst… P.S. I did, after all, pose a question, not make a statement in that earlier post. That wasn’t a mistake — I’d still love to know how Stein will factor, because I still don’t see it.
I know the CW was Tim was taking Baker voters. But numbers speak otherwise. As Cahill has collapsed, Patrick and Stein have risen – not Baker.
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p>If you look at the remaining support for Cahill its still D and U – not R.
He’s had some good news come out lately that has the electorate mollified a little: efficient handling of the giant water main break, and that huge jobs growth report.
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p>A lot is going to depend on if that jobs growth figure is sustainable or an anomaly. I think its an anomaly. (Have you seen the stock market?)
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p>The other big issue is just what kind of budget gets passed. The likely outcome of the budget is going to anger a lot of voters: cuts to local aid for the 3rd year in a row, and increased or level funded budgets at the Patronage Department.
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p>If the local aid cuts happen – voter anger will simmer all Summer and probably increase in the Fall as their kids face service cuts in school.
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p>Its unfair since the gov. proposed a budget that level funded local aid, but most people don’t follow the budget process closely enough to know that.
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p>Cahill is collapsing – but I don’t think its just the RGA ads. The RGA ads are just drawing on and amplifying a long series of bad stories that keep coming out about Cahill in the news. The public is realizing that he is the hackiest of hack pols:
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p>pay to play contracts at lottery, the enormous cost of defending him in the resulting lawsuit, his close ties to Probation Commissioner O’Brien, his involvement in patronage hires.
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p>And things are only going to get worse. Cahill is going to be defending himself in one suit, and testifying in two others. Three is one more Cahill scandal still on the horizon: contributions in exchange for state pension fund investments at some investment firm. Travaglini resigned a few days ago. I bet something pension related hits the news soon.
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The Stein numbers are intriguing. Note that Cahill’s numbers dropped
9 as a result of a milliondollar spend, whereas Stein’s numbers were up +5 … without any real dollars having been dropped at all, and with bare-bones coverage from a media that ordinarily talks about “the three candidates.” (Now imagine that her campaign was fueled by the same corporate-interest dollars that went into the GOP ad campaign … where do you think those numbers would be now?)<
p>If Stein holds at 8% or drops, I’d agree that more than a few who currently identify as likely Stein voters would switch to Deval (or, just as likely, stay home, which does him no favors). But if she posts 10% … well, these things tend to have a snowball effect. Double-digits have a way of making a dark horse appear very authentic, especially in a three-way race.
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p>I suspect that more than a few Cahill supporters aren’t huge supporters, but are looking for some–any–alternative. If he continues to slide, a rising star will attract that element as well. Once Stein qualifies for ballot access–adding another element of authenticity–her numbers will inevitably go up. If she’s polling at 15% by the end of July, there’s no way Patrick can avoid including her in debates. And as you know, she’s in her element there. The very recent and ongoing lessons provided by the Tea Party to the GOP are instructive…
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p>2. If she’s polling at 15% by the end of July… I think that if she consistently polls 8% that she’ll be included in the debates.
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p>3. as you know, she’s in her element [debating]. I’m not so sure of this. On the one hand, her words are compelling. On the other hand, her visuals are so-so.
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p>4. more than a few Cahill supporters aren’t huge supporters, but are looking for some–any–alternative. I don’t disagree, but this is like using sushi as an alternative to sausage & peppers.
Any chances that low-information people got turned off from Cahill due to the RGA ads, embrace the “pox on both houses” philosophy, and switched to Stein?
Definitely a positive poll for Patrick, but a couple of additional concerns beyond the right track/wrong track numbers David mentioned:
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p>(1) The partisan breakdown in this poll was 36D-12R-51U. That’s not a realistic view of the November electorate, which will look more like 40D-18R-42U. I’m not sure why Suffolk doesn’t make this adjustment, particularly in an off-year election when unaffiliated voters are even less likely to turn out.
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p>What that means is that Baker probably has more support than this poll indicates, since Republicans are overwhelmingly in Baker’s camp. On the other hand, Baker does better with unenrolled voters, so this poll’s oversampling of those voters benefits him slightly. This to some degree mitigates the substantial under-sampling of Republicans.
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p>(2) Patrick should not count on the bulk of Stein voters eventually turning to him. There is no indication in this poll that Stein voters are part of a “group of progressive voters out there who are very unhappy with Patrick”, as one comment above stated.
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p>The bulk of Stein’s support in this poll comes from non-affiliated respondents, and it’s unclear what that means. It could reflect a coming surge in registration for the Green Party. More likely, these are passive independents who haven’t thought about the race and likely won’t vote in November and chose Stein precisely because she’s the one person they’ve never heard of before (because they don’t want to express support for the “devils they know”). At this stage, she is the default “none of the above” for some voters.
There is no way that these support numbers are from “none of the above” voters. Large numbers of voters haven’t heard if Baker either. And I’d assume that among the segment of uninformed voters with no strong opinions that a lot of them would break for Patrick by default also.
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p>Every candidate in this poll will have some amount of support from people who really aren’t strong for their chosen candidate.
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p>Predictions were 0-3% for Stein. That would be consistent with ‘random’ or ‘none of the above’ type respondents. But 8% represents real support.
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p>The people for Stein are likely the most informed voters. People who follow politics enough to have heard of her. The regular politically complacent voter just would never have heard her name before.
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p>She just needs a little money to get her name out there.
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p>Baker’s and Stein’s problems with name recognition are comparing apples and oranges. About a third of voters do not recognize Baker, whereas a significant majority of the electorate have never heard of Stein. That actually works to her advantage among the few people who do not like all three major candidates but nevertheless do not want to say “undecided.”
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p>Why would you think so? I don’t see any evidence for this statement. (It would be interesting to get intensity of preference in these polls, but Suffolk didn’t ask that.)
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p>I would agree that a portion of the 8% represents real support — probably less than half. This group represents registered Green Party voters and progressives disappointed in Patrick.
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p>Why less than half? One piece of evidence is on page 163 of the crosstabs. Suffolk asked which candidate would be the respondent’s second choice, if the first choice couldn’t win the election. Only 22% of Stein voters said Patrick, while more said they’d vote for Baker (28%) and a few also said Cahill (14%). So Stein at this point is drawing more support from Baker, not Patrick.
Drop the teabaggers. They are not you, and in any event are too small a fraction of the electorate to bring you victory. Scott Brown, who you appear to want to emulate, artfully ran as an independent “Scott Brown Republican.” He didn’t attend the Boston Common Tea Party rally: you did. Sabutai is right, above, you can’t win running to the right of Baker.
Good for the Governor.
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p>In April, about 19,100 jobs were created on his watch.
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p>Patrick has also been preventing increases in health insurance rates. This is a BIG expense for many voters.
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p>A fair number people are hearing about JOBS and INSURANCE RATES, and what Patrick is doing about them.
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p>Some of these people prefer the delivery of jobs, and lack of increases in health insurance rates to hard to believe promises about tax cuts and vague sentiments about being “sick of it.”
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p>Please, Patrick, keep on swinging the hammer and letting people know about all of this.