Democrat Martha Coakley
On Thursday, SocialSphere released the latest in their series of tracking polls for the
Boston Globe, and Democrats got a headline they hoped they'd never see again: Martha Coakley is losing. SocialSphere finds Republican Charlie Baker
leading Coakley 40-38 in the gubernatorial contest, a five-point swing in Team Red's direction from a week before.
Coakley had lost a 2010 Senate special election to Republican Scott Brown and there have been real fears that she was too weak to defeat Baker, and this new poll seems to verify them. A recent Rasmussen poll also shows the race deadlocked at 42-42. Rasmussen has a well-deserved reputation for being an erratic (or downright awful pollster), but they seem to confirm that we are in for a close contest. While Massachusetts is a very blue state it has been willing to elect Republican governors, so it's far from unreasonable to imagine Baker winning.
But wait! Only a few days ago, MassInc, on behalf of WBUR, released very different results. They find Coakley up 46-36, indicating that this is her race to lose. A week before, while SocialSphere was showing Coakley up by three points, MassInc found her up by nine. It's hard to say which pollster is closer to the truth right now, but it's clear they are seeing very different types of electorates. One telling statistic: SocialSphere gives Coakley a weak 46-44 favorable rating while MassInc sees her at 51-30. There is more of a consensus when it came to Baker. SocialSphere gives him a healthy 51-24 rating, compared to MassInc's 42-24.
However, on Friday a different MassInc poll cast Coakley's lead into doubt. The group surveyed the 6th Congressional district, which includes Salem, Newburyport, and Lynn in the northeastern corner of the state. They find Baker leading 47-34 in the district, a troubling sign for Coakley. In 2012 Scott Brown beat Elizabeth Warren 54-46 in this district as he was losing 54-46 statewide: It's pretty much impossible to believe that Baker can be winning this seat by 14 points at the same time he's losing by 10 points statewide. MassInc has Democrat Seth Moulton leading his Republican rival by a realistic 47-39 margin in the district, so it doesn't look like this poll dramatically oversampled Republicans.
So is Coakley easily winning, or is she in for a real fight against Baker? Unfortunately, we just don't know right now. Republicans are certainly acting like they have a chance here though. The GOP has invested millions in CommonWealth Future PAC, a group that has been running a series of pro-Baker and anti-Coakley ads. National Democrats so far haven't invested any serious money into this very expensive state, which may indicate that they think Coakley's doing fine.
Right now there's a lot of uncertainty about where this race stands and these recent polls don't make things any clearer. Assuming the polls don't start to converge, the biggest thing to watch in the next few weeks is whether Republicans continue to invest here and if Democrats continue to hold their fire. If Team Blue is willing to commit resources here, that will be the surest sign that we have a real race on our hands.