MA-Sen: Coakley Leads Primary Pack, Mihos Won’t Get In

Rasmussen (9/8, likely Democratic voters):

Martha Coakley (D): 38

Stephen Lynch (D): 11

Ed Markey (D): 10

Michael Capuano (D): 7

John Tierney (D): 3

Some other candidate: 5

Not sure: 25

(MoE: ±4%)

Rasmussen acts quickly to get a look at the Democratic primary field in the Massachusetts Senate race, now that it’s clear that heavyweights Joe Kennedy II and Marty Meehan won’t be running. AG Martha Coakley, the only statewide official and the only woman in the race, has a big edge. She leads four Boston-area House members — each of whom represents 1/10th of the state, and most of whom pull in about 1/10th of the respondents.

Lots of other developments in the Bay State today. First and foremost, rumors were flying earlier today that Christy Mihos, the Independent-turned-Republican former convenience store czar and Turnpike Authority board member who’s currently running for Governor, would switch over to the Senate race, giving the GOP a top-tier candidate (albeit still a long shot for a federal office, in this dark-blue state). However, Mihos a few hours ago confirmed that he’s staying in the Governor’s race, where polls have shown him competitive.

Politico also rounds up a number of other odds and ends. One more Democrat is getting into the mix: Alan Khazei, the wealthy founder of City Year, a community service program for 20somethings. He has the potential to self-fund and might be able to tap into the youth vote. Martha Coakley, not exactly in a surprise, is getting EMILY’s List’s endorsement, which well help a lot with her fundraising (her one big disadvantage is she starts almost from scratch on money, while the House members all have huge stockpiles).

Finally, the Massachusetts legislature is poised to move on the legislation needed to create a temporary interim appointment until the special election can be held. Reportedly, legislation may be on the floor by day’s end. One other name has surfaced for the temporary appointment: Paul Kirk, former DNC chair and current head of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

19 thoughts on “MA-Sen: Coakley Leads Primary Pack, Mihos Won’t Get In”

  1. i think coakley just has higher name recognition. i plan on voting for capuano, hes the most liberal of the names currently in the race. markey is gettin pretty old and i doubt hes got what will prob b a nasty primary left in him. there are quite a lot of socially moderate cathloic dems in ma (ie. irish, italian and portugese-americans) but as the adds start goin out i think the real race will b between coakley and capuano. lynch will come at coakley from the right n in a closed primary, that wont work out too well, maybe in the south shore and worcester county, but not state wide

  2. Here’s why:

    “likely Democratic voters”

    If they only polled Democratic voters and not unenrolled voters, they missed over have the voters into state.  (Dems are 37%, Republicans 12%) Most of those voters are not stupid and are going to grab a Democratic ballot when they walk into their polling places.  Given that the political demographics of that croup is different than those who register as Democrats, excluding unerolleds from the poll is a huge mistake.

  3. A few points:

    Coakley has the advantage of being the only name that everyone in the state has seen on a ballot (and thus the only name in the race that many people west of 128 have heard of) and the only woman.

    Lynch has the advantage of being the only pro-lifer in what is otherwise a crowd of pro-choicers and the only non-liberal. His best chance would be a crowded field where he gets his base out and the liberals are divided several ways. He would need to get his name known to unenrolled conservative-leaning voters in places like Worcester, Springfield, New Bedford and Lowell. (His district includes some towns near the South Coast so he might be known there already.) But Lynch has got a low ceiling and has made some votes that his old labor base (a must for culturally conservative Catholic Democrats to win primary elections) can’t be happy with, and his hemming and hawing about health care reform isn’t helping either.  

    If the netroots activists unite behind someone other than the above (Lynch is an obvious nonstarter with this crowd, and many of them do not seem happy with Coakley for one reason or another) they’ll have a fighting chance with Markey or even Capuano (think Robert Reich’s near-miss in the 2002 MA-Gov primary)in this sort of election – but only if one candidate emerges from that group.  It won’t help them that Coakley is from Metrowest, normally a hotbed of these types of voters

    My guess is that unenrolled voters will have low turnout, especially in the primary, and that Ras knows this…however, it may have been a mistake to exclude them entirely, as they are free to vote, all the action is on the Dem side, so some of them will.  

  4. In a relatively short campaign, her status as statewide elected official, as well as being a woman, will set her apart from a field of less well-known men. The primary will happen in less than 3 months, so a name-ID head start right now is not insignificant. I also suspect that the current political environment means that not being a Washington officeholder will have some appeal.

    She starts at a financial disadvantage against the Congressmen not because she is a poor fundraiser, but because she doesn’t have a pre-existing pot of money raised for a federal races in the past. (Congressional campaign funds can be transfered to a Senate race, but state office campaign funds cannot.)  However, she can go back to all of her state donors and raise money for this race, while it is possible that the various Congressmen will find that at least some of their donors are already maxed out and unable to contribute more for this cycle. But there is no question that EMILY’s list and her large lead in the polls will make sure she no problems raising all the money she needs.

    Lynch seems to be counting on getting labor union support, but there seems to be some doubt about that — his vote for the Peru Free Trade bill and his public doubts about a public health insurance option could mean that union support isn’t automatic. But his image as a blue collar guy from southie will definitely have some appeal and he is likely to be a serious vote getter. (Although it has been some time since a conservative Democrat won a significant statewide primary — going back to John Silber in 1990 or Ed King in 1978).

    Capuano has a long way to go in terms of building name recognition and support in under 3 months, and will need some significant hook to set him apart from the other candidates — it will be difficult to distinguish himself from Coakley, who is viewed as almost equally progressive on most issues.

  5. then Coakley will have lock on the primary. She has huge advantages in Western Mass, Boston Suburbs and will win huge in Middlesex and Norfolk County along with a huge proportion of women. Meanwhile Lynch and Capuano will be spliting the Boston vote. It time to see Lynch loose and election, he is horrible.

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