What The Polls Are Saying

Deval Patrick is tanking. Anyone surprised?

A majority of Bay State voters say Gov. Deval Patrick has mishandled the state’s economy, according to a poll released this morning.

The Suffolk University/7 News survey of 600 registered voters found that while 37 percent approve of the governor’s management of the local economy, 55 percent disapprove. Of that number, 29 percent strongly disapprove.

“It’s one of many data points that show the majority of voters are unhappy with the governor,” said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center, who conducted the poll from Nov. 4-8. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

Oddly enough, Patrick leads the three-way contest against Tim Cahill and Christy Mihos, according to the Suffolk University/7 News survey.

Gov. Patrick’s negative marks have inched up to 47 percent since September, when they stood at 45 percent. Nevertheless, he remains predominant (36 percent) in a contest with state Treasurer Tim Cahill (26 percent), running as an Independent, and Republican businessman Christy Mihos (20 percent).

And still interesting to note that Christy Mihos still leads the way in the race for the Republican Primary.

Republican primary voters give Mihos the edge (33 percent) over Harvard Pilgrim Health Care CEO Charlie Baker (30 percent) in a GOP primary. Baker led Mihos among registered Republicans (33 percent to 28 percent) but Mihos, a former Independent candidate for Governor in 2006, outpolled Baker among Republican-leaning Independents (39 percent to 25 percent).

A general election scenario with Baker in the mix ticks Patrick up to 38 percent; Cahill remains at 26 percent; and Baker gets just 15 percent.

Doesn’t look like Charlie Baker is making much progress if he wants to get the Republican nod.

And what about the Senate special election?

On the race to replace Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s seat, 56 percent of voters are undecided over which candidate offers the best economic policies.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, a Democrat, topped the six-person race with 13 percent, followed by 11 percent for Republican state Sen. Scott Brown, 10 percent for Celtics [team stats] co-owner and Democrat Stephen Pagliuca and 9 percent for Congressman Michael Capuano (D-Somerville). Democrat and City Year co-founder Alan Khazei and Republican Jack E. Robinson were at zero percent.

More data on the poll from Suffolk University…

On the Democratic side of the Senate race, 44 percent chose Coakley, followed by 17 percent for Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca, 16 percent for U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano, and 3 percent for City Year founder Alan Khazei. Twenty percent were undecided.

“Steve Pagliuca scored the biggest improvement since September,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. “He traveled from zero to second place by flooding the air waves with TV ads. However, he still has not secured the most aware Democratic voters who are choosing Coakley and Capuano before him.”

On the Republican side, state Sen. Scott Brown (45 percent) led Jack E. Robinson (7 percent) with 47 percent undecided.

In General Election head-to-head matchups between the Democratic contenders and the GOP’s Brown, only Khazei fell short, with 33 percent of voters choosing Brown and 30 percent Khazei.

Still of lot of indecisiveness going on here. There’s still some time left before going to vote, and a lot can change.

Deval Has “No Comment” About McGee Case?

A shocking quote from Deval Patrick regarding the McGee case.

With reporters bearing down this afternoon, Gov. Deval Patrick declined to comment on the legal case against his aide, Carl Stanley McGee, and whether it will impact key legislation McGee helped craft on casinos and the state’s life sciences industry.

“No comment,” Patrick said when asked about the case by Ch. 7 News reporter Byron Barnett.

Barnett pressed with another question on whether Patrick is concerned that the case (in which McGee is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in Florida) will hinder efforts to move on his plan for three casinos or a $1 billion investment in the life sciences industry.

“No comment,” Patrick said again, to which Barnett replied, “No comment at all?”

Finally, the governor said, “I’m not concerned about that. I’m very concerned about him, and until this matter is resolved I’m not going to have any comment.”

As if “no comment” was bad enough, but then expressing his concern for McGee, not the victim?

I wonder if Ben LaGuer has any comment?

Deval Goes To Washington

Deval Patrick will be in Washington tonight fund-raising for his campaign, flanked by several black political figures including former National Urban League president Vernon Jordan, former labor secretary Alexis Herman and former deputy attorney general Eric Holder. The Boston Globe notes Patrick’s “national support” that will culminate with tonight’s fundraiser.

The event will showcase Patrick as part of new wave of political leaders poised to assume leadership from the black political establishment.

Like Patrick, the new leaders are the products of integration — younger, highly educated, seasoned with experience as political appointees in jobs that typically weren’t available to African-Americans of an earlier generation, analysts say.

Unlike the current black political establishment, however, their credentials and polish appeal to whites as well as black voters, helping to expand their political base beyond minority-based voting districts and African-American churches, the traditional center of black political power.

This latest out-of-state outreach highlights the fact that Patrick has raised a higher percentage of out-of-state money than Democratic rival Tom “Cover Up” Reilly and the presumed Republican nominee Kerry Healey.

With the Commonwealth of Massachusetts being one of the bluest of blue states, and Deval Patrick being left of Reilly, why is Patrick depending on out-of-state funding so much? Shouldn’t the bleeding heart liberals be throwing stacks of cash at Patrick? The Democratic Party has enjoyed a long-standing monopoly of support from the Black community, so you would think that when given the chance, they would prop up black icon, just as the national Democratic Party props up Barack Obama. Patrick’s black political conglomerate hopes to continue the momentum of Obama’s victory in 2004.

The Democrats have long contended that the Democratic Party is the party for black voters, and Democrats have a long standing tradition of pandering to them. Not long ago, Patrick seemed to improve his polling relative to that of Tom Reilly in a match up versus Kerry Healey, Reilly is still ahead of Patrick and Gabrieli according to the latest 7 News/Suffolk University poll, and enjoys a 6 point lead over Patrick in match-ups versus Healey (and Mihos and Green-Rainbow candidate Grace Ross).

You would think Patrick would be enjoying a steady lead over Reilly based on the fact he is to the left of Reilly in a blue state. Perhaps black candidates in the Democratic Party are just passé.

Reilly Nosedives in New Poll

Tom Reilly’s lieutenant governor fiasco has resulted in a 30 point drop in support among Democrats.

Attorney General Tom Reilly’s support among Democratic voters has nosedived, with his once-formidable lead over rival Deval Patrick collapsing to single digits, a new poll shows.

Reilly’s nearly 40-point lead from a year ago shrank to just 9 percentage points, according to the just-released Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll.

Reilly has a fight now. Suddenly he has to focus on it to win the nomination,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the poll with Channel 7 News.

Reilly’s bumbled handling of his gubernatorial running mate choice has helped lead to one in five Democrats believing Reilly is ““out of his league.”

Even more troubling for the AG, according to Paleologos, is that one-third of the 55 percent who see Reilly as “qualified”” still plan to vote for Patrick.

The poll shows Reilly besting Patrick 39-30, a statistical dead heat given the poll’’s 4.9-point margin of error.

If Reilly continues to stumble like this, he will be toast in the primaries. That would lead to Kerry Healey, a moderate Republican candidate, running against Deval Patrick, a very liberal candidate. Healy will then be able to run a campaign similar to the last 4 GOP governors who warned voters about the dangers of allowing all three branches of state government to be run by liberal Democrats. Independent voters, who don’t want their 16 year old daughters getting abortions without their consent, don’t like the way gay marriage was shoved down their throats, don’t want to pay for illegal immigrants college education, and don’t want their taxes raised, will again vote Republican allowing the GOP to hold on to the governor’s seat for another four years.

Cross-posted at New England Republican