Democrat Martha Coakley
This is not encouraging. Democrat Martha Coakley just released a poll from Kiley & Company showing her behind Republican Charlie Baker 44-42 in the Massachusetts gubernatorial contest.
It's not a good sign at all that the best survey she could release shows her down, especially in a contest that she was expected to win until recently. The unimaginatively named Democratic group Massachusetts IE PAC also recently released a poll showing Coakley up only 45-44. A recent MassInc poll gave Baker a 1-point lead, while SocialSphere found him up by 9 points.
It would be easy to look at all this and just say, "Martha Coakley's thrown away another race," but it's a bit more complicated than that. In the 2010 U.S. Senate race, there's little doubt that Coakley didn't take Republican Scott Brown seriously until it was too late, and made a number of gaffes that only worsened her situation. Coakley has been a much more disciplined candidate this time around, and doesn't appear to have made any major tactical errors.
Instead, it's largely been external factors that have left Coakley in a poor position. Head below the fold for more.
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Coakley has taken Baker seriously from the start this time around, and for good reason. Massachusetts has a history of electing Republican governors, and it was never outside the realm of possibility that Baker could win. Massachusetts Democrats dominate the legislature, and plenty of voters, even liberal-leaning ones, feel more comfortable with a Republican governor to counterbalance them. From 1990 to 2002 the state elected three Republican governors, including the moderate-sounding Mitt Romney. In 2006 Romney was leaving office as a very unpopular man, and voters gave Democrat Deval Patrick a chance. Patrick was able to survive the 2010 red wave, defeating Baker 48-42. While plenty of Republicans were disappointed by Baker's performance, he did prove that Massachusetts was not averse to sending Republicans back to Beacon Hill. Baker has been running as a pro-choice, commonsense moderate, exactly the type of Republican Massachusetts voters can get behind.
There is also one important area where Baker is excelling: money. Coakley's fundraising hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been terrific, and she needed to spend a lot of her war chest in the Sept. 9 primary. By contrast, Baker had only minor inter-party opposition and could hoard most of his money for the general election. Baker held nearly an 11-to-1 cash-on-hand advantage after the primary and received a good deal of air support from the RGA-funded Commonwealth Future PAC. Coakley was never able to close the cash gap enough: As of mid-October, Baker still held a $1.5 million to $319,000 cash-on-hand lead.
It shouldn't be a surprise that this late primary date hurts Democrats. There are plenty of ambitious Democrats willing to run against one another, while the small Republican bench actually works to the GOP's advantage. One candidate, like Baker, can enter the race and face no real primary competition, allowing him to run to the center and keep his money while the Democrats bash each other. A late primary all but ensures that Democrats will emerge broke and bruised, and without much time to recover for the general.
The Democratic legislature sets the primary date and could pick an earlier time, giving their gubernatorial nominee more time to recover from the primary. A January 2013 bill would move future primaries to June. In the last decade Maryland Democrats found themselves in a similar situation, and realized that their dominance of the state and their late primary were working against them. In 2006 the Old Line State's primary was also in mid-September; now it's in late June, giving the party much more time to prepare for the general election. If Massachusetts Democrats want to avoid another long and damaging nomination contest, they should seriously consider following their Maryland counterparts' example.
National Democrats have helped Coakley on the airwaves but not nearly enough to offset the better-funded RGA. Republican outside groups have outspent Democratic ones $8,350,000 to $4,192,000, augmenting Baker's financial advantage. It's hard to know how much of Coakley's financial disparity is from the long primary, and how much may just be due to poor fundraising. Still, it looks like Team Red's superior air game helps explain why Coakley's polls are moving in the wrong direction.
Suffice to say, there's a lot of blame to go around. It may be fair to blame Coakley for not raising enough money throughout this contest, but she is forced to operate under an unfavorable calendar. It's too early to write Coakley's political obituary: That SocialSphere poll aside, most polls have shown a tight race. However, with Coakley herself releasing polls showing her down, it's hard to conclude that things are going well for her.
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