The Globe’s latest poll says he is. The Coakley campaign promptly put out a statement declaring that the poll is “clearly an outlier” and that every other independent poll has shown the race much tighter. Well, maybe – certainly we’d all like to think so.
But if I recall correctly, the Globe poll was the one that picked up the Maura Healey surge in the primary. After many weeks of polls showing the race basically tied, the Globe published a shocker just a couple of days before the election showing that she had jumped out to a 15-point lead. A lot of people (including myself, frankly) didn’t believe it – we thought she was probably ahead, but by maybe 5 or 6 points. As we now know, though, the Healey surge was real (she won by 25).
Lightning doesn’t routinely strike twice, so maybe the Globe poll nailed a late surprise surge in the AG primary, only to see another one in the Gov general where there isn’t one. But you know what I’m going to say next. There’s no way of knowing if the poll is right or wrong, and it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you do what you can to bring about the result you want.
Hasn’t put out any other polls. They’ve been propping up this “Chokely” narrative all season, and propping up Baker.
This site is guilty of doing the same thing. Note the absence of anyone mentioning the Hillary/Coakley rally yesterday.
Feel free to post it yourself! This site works best when members post things that are of interest to them and that they think are noteworthy. The editors all have actual jobs and don’t have time to write everything up.
My lifelong habit of ignoring polls was stopped dead by the first Scott Brown campaign, when I committed to print (via e-mail anyway) my opinion that the polls simply had to be wrong, it wasn’t possible.
But that said, this is an outlier result, as you noted. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but it could be. Maura Healey was a Democrat in a Democratic primary, and she impressed people who looked at her more closely.
I’m not sure Charlie does that, and besides the general is a whole different ballgame. If the vaunted Independents broke his way in large numbers, maybe, but are they? And are they motivated? If we turn out the way we can turn out, Coakley should be fine.
I’m voting for Martha, but there’s a palpable Dem-fatigue in this state right now. She’s not choking that’s ridiculous, but she’s inheriting an electorate that requires her to be more flexible with her campaign strategies. She’s GOT to be more dynamic/passionate. Baker is Scott Walker come to roll back everything you progressives hold dear, and you’re tut-tut ing over the bug dust of this or that in her platform and the wolf is at the door.
Martha, show you’ve learned your ‘lesson’ from 2010 and go to the Pats game.
Out of spite…Well, here’s the thing, there are a lot of people who will be out of a job if Baker gets in.
The Martha Coakley campaign is not choking. “Choking” is when a team who is expected to win and has been winning collapses in the final contest.
Martha Coakley and her campaign have been ignoring or alienating loyal and lifelong Democrats like me for the entire race. The campaign has, from the beginning, crafted her strategy to pander to so-called “independents” who presumably sit on a fence waffling between Mr. Baker and the Democratic nominee — and in that pandering gave the raised middle finger to those of us who made our choice a lifetime ago. Her conduct of her current office is inconsistent with my values as a liberal progressive Democrat. Her supporters have been abrasive, bullying, and arrogant for the entire campaign. Since the primary, I’m exhorted to suck it up and vote for her anyway. The specter of “Governor Baker” is summoned over and over as a further attempt to coerce my betrayal of my own values.
Martha Coakley is NOT choking. She is reaping what she has sowed.
The polite version is “People like to be asked for their vote.” I think the base is taken for granted, and not just by Coakley but by a wide swath of candidates including our currently presumptive presidential nominee.
The irony is that I suspect that even the vaunted candidates prefer candidates with strong beliefs who express them. They like to know what they’re getting.
That said, Coakley has emphasized the issues she cares about most. It’s just not as wide as my list. I concede that I want too much.
Baker threw the GOP base under the bus and most of them are sitting this race out or covertly supporting Martha.
This has been the dynamic of modern elections, locally and nationally.
Consider a company with three shareholders. “Charlie” holds 49% of the stock. “Billy” holds 49% of the stock. “Suzie” holds 2%. Charlie and Billy are mortal enemies (think Market Basket). Suzie cares only about maximizing her return, and has no loyalty to either Charlie or Billy.
If you are a third-party suitor crafting a deal with Billy, who are you most likely to throw your money at?
Especially about the base of the MA GOP.
With 11% undecided and 5% spread between Falchuk, Lively and McCormick (all of whom sit squarely to Charlie Bakers right) I think it is possible he may be on to something. The poll in question does not, in fact, show any surge, or much change at all for Charlie Baker from previous polls. It shows an inexplicable drop for Martha Coakley. So it’s not like Charlie has a whole lot of solid support and, if the numbers are true, those fleeing Martha Coakley don’t seem to be rushing to Baker…
Certainly just saying he doesn’t know anything isn’t particularly compelling evidence that, in fact, he doesn’t know anything. And it doesn’t tell us anything about what it is you think you know that might contradict him.
I won’t vote for him, because I want to defeat Baker, but he strikes me as the best of the 5 candidates. Lively is a total whack job and I don’t know what to think about McCormick.
See what he actually believes — including on climate change and poverty. http://www.falchuk2014.org/whatwebelieve
For reasons that somervilletom so often explores, among others, I cannot support Coakley. I was going to be blanking the ballot on the gubernatorial race but now I’m voting for Falchuk. I am hoping the establishment of a third party will push the Dems further to the left, and force our Dem candidates to be stronger and get a little backbone.
Is that what you were looking for?
I’m staunchly anti-casino myself and pro gun regulation.
Re Falchuk and casinos — As I understand, he is not voting for repeal. He does not, however, unlike Coakley or Baker, believe that if the law is repealed he would go back to the trough for one in Springfield (or somewhere else). Unfortunately, my primary candidate Grossman also supported the casinos. Fortunately, the entire question is on the ballot and I’m regularly talking about it to convince friends and family (and have made some progress).
Re gun control — I looked this up because I actually did not know his position. I found this article suggesting that he would have supported the House bill earlier this year —
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/05/28/many-gubernatorial-candidates-supportive-house-gun-violence-bill/ETPq12ffh1kKaqJiu4v3OO/story.html
I also found this post, suggesting at the very least a broad understanding of the issue and calling for increased enforcement in Massachusetts: https://www.facebook.com/UnitedIndependentParty/posts/366627636800475
Okay here you go, by the numbers.
The convention was 100% base activists and 15% went for Fisher. How could then Baker “throw the base under the bus” ?
The base of the MA GOP is a wide swath of people. Check out who gives the money. Are there social conservatives in the party? Yes, some, and they are now a majority on the state committee.
They are behind Baker officially (socons). There are some who will never ever vote for a pro-choice candidate though. Coakley and her NARAL stuff are too much for them though.
Tisei has hundreds of people around him who have been with him since the 80’s and are a far cry from what people perceive here as the base.
Are there conservative activists who don’t like Baker? Yes, but they hate Coakley and all Democrats. They would never ever help Coakley.
Tea Partiers and Republicans are two different things. Some Tea Partiers are Republicans. Most Tea Partiers vote Republicans. None are voting for Coakley. This was pretty much Fisher’s base, and the 15% of R’s who supported him were probably joined by Tea Party unenrolleds in the primary.
I never go on about Democratic inside politics. I find it annoying all the generalizations that get tossed around here. Reminds me of the ethnic stereotypes of my youth.
I think John Della Volpe, who does polling for the Boston Globe, is a very good pollster. But even good pollsters have outliers.
Every other poll taken this week, including the WBUR poll that was released on Wednesday (43-42), has the race within the margin of error. Our campaign was in the field this week with a 600-person tracking poll and has the race within the margin of error.
In addition, the Boston Globe poll is the only public poll that has shown such big volatility in the race for Governor. Remember, just two weeks ago, the same poll had Martha Coakley up 5. So, that same poll has shown a movement of 14 points in the last two weeks, when no other poll has shown anywhere near that volatility, and without some major event in the race to account for that kind of swing.
Finally, while I agree the Boston Globe poll picked up the Healey move in the Primary, they missed how close the Governor’s race would be in the Primary.
All I am saying is that everyone, including the media, should wait to see what the other public polls say in the next few days before deciding if this is a real trend or not. From everything we are seeing on the ground and in our polling, we believe it is not.
Full Disclosure – I work for the Coakley campaign.
The Globe poll were from the conservative leaning towns on the south Shore and Worcester County. That alone would skew the poll red.
.. as the pollsters, according to the Globe article David links to above, added a hundred more respondents. Intuitively, the addition of more respondents might add more clarity to the snapshot but muddies any insight one might try to get from trending. Here’s why trends — under these circumstances are suspect: Baker actually is not surging, according to the trends Coakley dropped support and the undecideds are the category with the most volatility.
The spin of Baker surge is all the Globe –and perhaps all wishful thinking– and I expect a Globe endorsement of Baker in the next few days.
As much as people here at BMG like to bash Coakley up and down the street (while professing support outta the other side of their face) in my estimation she’s had a hard core 40% of the CommonWealth behind her most of her career. Absent some extraordinary revelation that occurred on the 18th of the month, or a whisper campaign, I don’t see her dropping that much.
As is most of the mainstream media. Had Baker not been promoted so heavily as a formidable oponent, this race would be more like the AG race which the media ignores and the Dem wins by default.
But the fact that the Coakley campaign didn’t immediately counter with an internal poll is a bit worrisome. That’s pretty much standard practice when poll numbers like this come out.
Their internal polls must have Baker up as well, just not as much.
Fortunately, we were in the field with a poll Wednesday and Thursday night, so Friday morning, we put out a memo saying that our internal poll had the race within the margin of error – the same day the poll was in the Boston Globe.
N/T
nt
To: Interested Parties
From: Kiley & Company
Re: Results of Massachusetts Tracking Survey
Date: October 24, 2014
_____________________________________________________________
Kiley & Company interviewed a representative sample of 600 Massachusetts voters who are likely to cast ballots in the November election. Respondents were randomly selected from a file of all voters in the state, and were interviewed on both landlines and cell phones. Interviews were conducted during the evening hours of October 22-23, 2014.
Key Findings
• The race for Governor remains a statistical dead heat.
– Charlie Baker leads Martha Coakley, 44% to 42%. Baker’s two-point lead is well within the survey’s margin of error (+/-4.0%).
– Independent candidates take 5% of the vote; 9% are undecided.
• Undecided voters look promising for Coakley.
– 66% are women.
– 54% are self-described liberals.
– 50% are registered Democrats or Democratic “leaners.”
• These results are consistent with those of other surveys that were conducted after Tuesday’s debate.
– Three other surveys conducted in the past week all show Baker and Coakley within one or two points of each other.
– All of the surveys that were conducted after Tuesday’s televised debate indicate a one- or two-point race.
• Voters give Coakley the edge on “sharing my values.”
– Voters give Coakley a four-point advantage over Baker as the candidate who “shares my values.”
– Statistically, this area is the strongest predictor of how respondents will actually vote.
– Coakley also leads in the areas of “looking out for average families” (+13 points) and “standing up to special interests” (+9).
Thanks for taking the time to post that.
even for polls with very sound methodology, 1 out of 20 can be expected to be inaccurate beyond margin of error through no fault of the pollster. Is this poll an outlier or is it the beginning of a trend similar to what we saw in the Senate special election? I don’t have any way to know unless and until some more reputable polls are released.
Throwing out there when Coakley caught traction. If you notice, it was thrown out there right after the beating Coakley gave Baker in the last debate.
This is a reality based community and the reality is a lot of us are concerned she is going to lose. That does not mean we hate her or love Baker or won’t work for her-but we are very fearful of the result. Blaming the media for reporting facts is what the GOP does. Let’s not emulate it.
The media wasnt hyping up Baker. Baker has zero credentials but he has the media bought and paid for.
after all these comments…
“Gripless” is a great word. I think I’ll steal it.
Charlie Baker didn’t have to buy the media. Your corporate media are always going to try and make contests for major political offices seem exciting, even when they are really lopsided. It gets them eyeballs, which is what lets them sell advertising. Baker may have benefited from their propensity for drama, but he didn’t create it.
…or even just examples of Baker getting unduly favorable coverage? In my view, the media SHOULD give at least both major candidates ways of getting their message out, covering their events, statements, etc. For that matter ideally they would give minor candidates exposure as well.