Ed Markey holds a 44-34 lead among likely Democratic primary voters, but 21% say they’re undecided and 36% report they might change their minds, according to a new poll from the Western New England University Polling Institute. Margin of error is +/- 6 percentage points; sample size is 270.
On the Republican side, Gabriel Gomez was ahead with 33% followed by Michael Sullivan at 27% and Dan Winslow at just 9%. However, the undecideds were 30%, and those saying they might change mind came in at a whopping 59%. Margin of error was +/` 9 for a quite small sample size of 128.
The story at masslive.com also says that Lynch does better than Markey in a “hypothetical” matchup against a Republican opponent, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that, since Markey “leads by a margin of 15 to 19 percentage points.”
More details are supposed to be released tomorrow morning.
Navy SEAL
Navy SEAL –> drink!
(oops, the blog didn’t understand my punctuation in the first iteration)
that is remarkably high. I wouldn’t pay this poll much attention.
people in a sample, but that’s for both primaries combined and some say they haven’t decided which primary to vote in, or that they’re not voting in either. With only about 35-40% of respondents planning to vote in the GOP primary, it’s a sample of only 225 or something and you get these big MOE. Really should have a bigger sample.
Down in the south area, I am seeing only Lynch signs and stickers, not a hint of Markey, even in Brockton.
will be released tomorrow, according to the article. But statewide Lynch signs predominate. Markey campaign says they’re focusing not on visibility but on making sure they ID their voters and turn them out. A bit disconcerting for a Markey supporter to see Lynch signs everywhere, but there were Scott Brown signs all over last fall and it didn’t help him win.
I note, adding to my earlier comment, that the GOP primary sample was only 128 people. Way too small to draw too many conclusions.
signs don’t vote
signs seem to be few and far between. I see one Lynch sign on my 25-mile way to work through five municipalities (that’s leaving out the highway).
Lynch signs are all over. West Roxbury stands out in particular. but I’ve seen them in Lynn and Framingham as well. In most neighborhoods there are few indications there’s an election taking place at all. The only signs I’ve seen for the Republicans at all were on a trip to the Cape two weekends ago. There were a few there for Sullivan.
The campaign made a strategic/financing decision not to invest in signs in preference to additional field staff, at least for the primary phase. I have expressed my concerns to field staff that in a low-turnout, low-awareness election signs will end up “voting” if people see some of their neighbors with Lynch signs, but none with Markey signs.
which I mentioned as well. I overheard people in a bar near here saying Lynch was running and must be the favorite, since you’re not seeing signs for anyone else, but there must be another dude running since they had a debate against each other. As you say, not good in a low-turnout primary with few paying attention.
even turn out in a special election primary anyway? Wondering if that’s sort of the point…
Starting to hate special elections, seems like a very small percentage of eligible voters get to decide who gets to have a very important elected position…
you misspelled “choose” g-e-t.
they might not, and a lot of people won’t. The risk remains that some will vote out of a sense of civic duty that doesn’t extend to learning anything about the candidates’ positions and histories before they vote. Not sure how many people will vote Lynch out of a perception he’s the front-runner but in such a low-turnout affair it could make a difference.
I agree about special elections generally. We could change the law after this one to allow for appointment until the next regular Congressional election. Downside to that is nearly two years of someone like Sen. Invisible, I mean Cowan.
Certainly there’s nothing keeping the electorate from turning out in the same numbers as for a regular election.
More than 2.1 million people voted in the Coakley-Brown special election in January 2010, or roughly 54% of registered voters. That’s not much different from the 2.3 million or so who voted in the regular November 2010 gubernatorial. (Of course it’s a lot lower than 2012 which had both a presidential race and arguably our most interesting Senate race in a generation.)
I looked at this and the 2010 special turnout was a bit lower, but not that much lower, than Nov. 2010 and Nov. 2006. Turnout was high in 2008, when we had no major state races on the ballot (Kerry v. Beatty doesn’t count). It seems like there’s Presidential elections and then there’s everything else.
which is why a poli sci professor friend of mine was telling me months before the November ’12 election that Elizabeth Warren would win, because if all else were equal, she’d be vastly helped by the makeup of a presidential year electorate in Massachusetts. (And happily as it turned out, all else was far from equal.)
Rationally, the high presidential election turnout here makes little sense to me, given the relative unimportance of your average Massachusetts resident’s vote in our unfortunate Electoral College system. But I’m happy people ignore that and vote anyway. Wish they all would during gubernatorial years too.
voting makes no sense at all. You spend ~15-30 minutes to vote [get there, wait on line, get back to life]. You might spend some time doing your homework.
What are the odds that either (a) the candidate you would have voted for would lose by a single vote, and your vote would force a tie, and then your candidate would win a coin toss, or (b) the candidate you would have voted for would tie but lose the coin toss, but your vote pushes the candidate to victory?
And, what’s the relative difference to your life should the “wrong” candidate win?
I’m not arguing that ties never happen, but the bigger the race, the less likely, and the smaller the race, the less influence the winner has on your life. Either way, voting isn’t rational. You do it to perform your civic duty, to feel good about having your voice heard, or for 100 other reasons. But, it ain’t rational from a bean-counting perspective.
from an atomistic perspective. Most people get that their individual vote won’t make much difference if you assume all the other voters behaving in the same way. But you can’t assume that. The people who show up do it because they know that, if everyone followed the reasoning you set out, the whole system would collapse.
Voters have tons of good reasons to vote, preventing “the whole system [from] collapse” being one of them. Myopic rationality ain’t one of ’em though, that’s all.
And oceandreams’ comment that Presidential elections, the least likely to be impacted by their vote, are most likely to have high turnout, shows that myopic rationality has little to do with voting patterns. Presidential elections get a lot more press, and because of the high profile of the office it’s more obvious that they matter. The other elections matter too (Gov. Romney, Sen. “41st vote” Brown), but that’s not as clear to many people.
has been the common path of suburban spread for South Boston natives. I have seen folks with South Boston roots all the way down through Whitman and Brockton and most places in between. It’s only natural that Lynch would have a well of support there.
It’s contiguous with his current district and parts of his old one, he needs to do better outside of his district to be able to win this. Now Markey has the advantage of representing the bulk of Middlesex county where most of the votes are and a good stretch of the 495 belt, presumably he carries Capuano’s more liberal district as well and he can do quite good. I would say the West and the south suburbs of Keating and Kennedy’s districts are the true tossup areas.
The MOE on the poll itself is large. Now cut the sample into fifths (Boston, NS, SS, Worcester, WM) and the MOE becomes far too big to allow the breakdown to be helpful.
My bet: Markey running up the score in parts of Boston, N&W suburbs. Also Western MA. Lynch mopping up South Shore, 128 belt. There won’t be precise enough statistical inference beyond that…
Small sample aside, Lynch appears to be doing well in Central Mass. In each of the hypothetical general election matchups Lynch does pretty well there and Markey about 10 points worse. That alone accounts for the findings that, statewide, Lynch would outperform Markey in a general election.
According to the FEC web-site, Markey has spent about $3.1 million so far while Lynch has spent about $1.7 million. But, the polls seem to indicate that the race is getting closer. Is Markey spending his money wisely?
anything about the trend in the race from this poll. The sample size is small and MassLive’s had a lot more undecideds in all of their polling than other pollsters.
They don’t start with likely Dem primary voters as a threshold question. They ask people which primary they’re likely to vote in, and then ask anyone who says “Dem” which candidate they plan to support. It may be that many of those people won’t vote in the Dem primary at all. All polls, this one included, have shown Markey up big among registered Dems and Lynch doing well with unenrolled voters who may, or may not, pull a Dem ballot.
But I’ve had my questions about Markey’s campaign. In particular their first two ads, though I think the third one (about women’s issues) was better. We’ll know for sure in about 10 days if he’s spent wisely. I’ll reiterate that, if Lynch wins the primary, he’ll have neither my support nor my vote. He’s on a very short list of Dem nominees for whom I won’t vote.
…especially if the race between him and the Republican tightens. He’ll likely vote your way 7 times out of 10 rather than 9 times out of 10, but I think it’s a safe bet that he will not be a vote for GOP obstruction for its own sake. I can see not working for him or donating to him, but I assume you won’t vote GOP, I don’t believe there is a Green or other candidate, and if you don’t vote at all you can’t complain about the result.
I believe strongly that certain things are flat-out unacceptable, and Steve Lynch has spent most of his career on the wrong side of those lines. I just cannot fill in an oval for that man, and I can’t say I find it OK to vote for him just because he has a “D” next to his name; that goes counter to my view of how to build a better Democratic Party. So I’d write in someone I actually think should be Senator.
I’m hoping it won’t come to that, but in any event the indications are Lynch – should he win the primary – would win in June without my vote.
Democrats need to fall in love with their candidates, but republicans just fall in line.
The Tea Party folks have been wreaking some havoc primarying longtime GOP officials. Normally I’d fall in line but this is a (rare exception). Case in point: I’m volunteering for Ed Markey and put his sticker on my car, but I’m not necessarily in love with him as a candidate.
If this were true, then we would have government-sponsored single-payer health insurance, gun control, and no filibusters at the national level and the governor’s budget proposal would be sailing to enactment locally.
Democrats like me have been falling in line like me, and our party is filled with DINOs as a result.
I’m with fenway49. Enough is enough.
Is one of the last of the Reagan democrats. What with the changing demographics and the rise (and descent) of the Tea Party these folks have fared about as we’ll as moderate republicans – not so good. I don’ see lynch doing too well outside his enclave and he presents an opportunity for a new wave republican – ultra right without the tea party shrillness.
So Markey is the guy I think but he could use improvement.
Baucus was out entirely for himself and just wanted to cash out on his power whereas Lynch is sincerely conservative and bigoted.
the “I am Steve Lynch” commercial was okay, but he’s trying to run a Scott Brown campaign in an issues primary. Markey’s ads are hitting the issues hard. I like the one that starts with Charlton Heston in full NRA crazy mode.
They seem too disconnected from Massachusetts for me, especially given that Lynch’s people are trying to paint him as an out-of-touch DC pol whose ties to Malden have been weakened. The BP one, in particular, seemed off to me. Obviously the environment is important and a big issue for Markey, but the spill was three years ago and the Gulf is 2,000 miles away.
I’d prefer an ad that makes the choice clear by hitting all the progressive stances Markey has espoused, across the board, with a lot more visuals of Massachusetts. I thought the third ad came closest to that.
here.
The wild card, which isn’t very wild, is the open primary. The questions, “Which unenrolled voters will vote and which of those will choose a Dems or Repubs ballot?” I don’t think Lynch can draw enough independents into the Democratic primary to make a difference. The primary is going to be decided by super voters, those of us who vote in every election. We’re more liberal than the general electorate that votes for a Democrat, and we are more sure about what we believe than the rest of the electorate. This wild card, which is admittedly hard for pollsters to deal with, is the main problem with this poll, though I suppose if they were very sophisticated, they could try weighing support by types of voters, i.e. super voter, usually Democratic voting unenrolled, usually Republican unenrolled, etc.
The question that resulted in 36% of Democrats saying they might change their mind is a bad one.The likelihood of someone changing their mind is continuous variable, a matter of degree, not a matter of yes or no. That 36% likely overstates the possibility of a Democratic voter changing their minds. Here’s the text: “Are you very sure of your choice, or might you change your mind before the primary?” The real question, using a Likert scale would have been “How sure of your choice are you?” or “On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being very sure, how sure of your choice are you?” Instead, they pollster uses the word “very” into the mix, which gives an extreme and the rest of the spectrum of response. If we were to add those who were highly unlikely or somewhat unlikely against those who were somewhat likely or somewhat unlikely, we’d likely have a more accurate result. A chunk of that 36% is in the somewhat range.
And think about it. What would make people change their minds at this point? More advertising? Doubt it. More mailings? Yeah, right. Short of a scandal most people’s minds will stay the same.
Lynch v. Gomez would be interesting. The Democrat v. the progressive (relatively speaking).
And the result of most people on both sides of the aisle staying home, or the RMG crowd voting for Lynch to wreak havoc. The Gomez poll seemed odd to me, as Sullivan has a lot of RMG support and has made the quiet rounds to various corners of the GOP party. Winslow really should’ve stayed out, I suspect he was hoping for a quick coronation, a 40-45% finish against Markey to set himself up for a rematch or the Governorship, and now he will go back to being a back bencher.
But yeah didn’t Gomez tell Deval he liked ACA, choice, gay rights, and being a Democrat?
As far as Winslow staying out goes, he was in BEFORE Sullivan or Gomez.
if he loses. He’s been out campaigning. (My parents saw him at some sportsman even in Sutton last weekend). He’s likely made some connections and improved his name recognition across the state (though not necessarily a huge amount). Should he choose to run for, say, governor, he’s in a better position than he was before.
I’m completely opposed to him on ideological grounds, but he’s not a wingnut like Sullivan who I hope wins the nomination. Time will tell if Fehrnstrom can turn Gomez into Scott Brown.
Lynch v. Gomez would be interesting. The Democrat v. the progressive (relatively speaking).