National Democrats are haunted by memories of Martha Coakley’s unforced stumbles and missteps in 2010, which cost them a U.S. Senate seat in one of the country’s bluest states.
Four years later, the Massachusetts attorney general might be about to blow another major contest: The race to succeed Deval Patrick as governor.
With two weeks left to go, a new poll by WBUR, which tracks the race weekly, found Coakley trailing for the first time against Republican Charlie Baker, a former health care CEO who served as secretary of finance and health under Gov. William Weld in the 1990s.
It’s still a close contest: Baker has 43 percent while Coakley has 42 percent, well inside the poll’s 4.4 percent margin of error.
But the troubling sign for Coakley is that Baker appears to be gaining steam down the stretch after consistently trailing throughout the campaign.
“It’s one of several polls which over the last week or so have shown a movement toward Baker,” Steve Koczela, the president of MassINC Polling Group, which conducts the polls, said. “Coakley has essentially been treading water while Baker’s been climbing.”
Coakley’s late drop-off seems eerily reminiscent of the 2010 special election against upstart Republican candidate Scott Brown, when the Democrat blew a huge lead, fell behind in the final stretch, and went on to lose.
Coakley, too, hasn’t forgotten about 2010. During a televised debate with Baker on Tuesday, she said the biggest misconception about her was that “people still think from 2010 that I don’t have a sense of humor and I’m too chilly, and I’ve worked four years to overcome that.”
Notably, Massachusetts has been warmer toward Republicans in gubernatorial races. While Democrats have dominated in Senate elections for a generation, Republicans held the governorship consistently from 1991 to 2007.
The WBUR poll surveyed 501 likely voters from Oct. 15-18.
I listened to that debate. I think she will probably win narrowly.
I still continue shake my head to think that ANY Democrat could be such a strong not-campaigner, a voter-passion suppressor, and spine-challenged operative that they could lose Teddy Fu*king Kennedy’s seat to a Republican in a statewide race in Massachusetts!!! Most days you can fit all of Massachusetts’ Republicans into a nicely appointed tour bus.
I shall never again underestimate Coakley’s ability to not-campaign herself out of an easy win, because Baker is just a more homely Stripper Scotty Brown!
“It’s like deja-vu, all over again.”
__________Yogi Berra
I was so nervous when I saw that she was able to clear her way out of the primary. This is just atrocious.
In a state with such a machine, how can someone ascend to opportunities like this twice without innate talent? If she has a benefactor, they(?) must be old and powerful. Otherwise, why have MA Dems quailed against such an awful retail pol?
If she loses this one, it at least slams the door shut forever.
Why has this reporter omitted the latest news from Mass about Charlie Baker and Chris Christie “pay to play” scandal.
It is all over the Mass. news ???
Someday, she’ll be a meme, e.g. “Now goddammit, Jake, we need to get out there and shake some hands. We’re not gonna pull a fucking Martha Coakley here.”