American Athens

Well that wasn’t very fair of The Boston Globeand CBS4, putting a poll out on the one day of the week I’m guaranteed to be away from my computer. Of course, it shows roughly the same picture that SurveyUSA and Rasmussen gave: A large, though not insurmountable lead by Deval Patrick (55%) over his opponents, principally, Kerry Healey (30%). As David at BMG pointed out, the real big news from this poll comes in finding that Healey has a -2 favorability rating (40% favor, 42% unfavor). That’s 42% of the electorate that is writing her off completely at this moment and, in a three way race, that spells doom.

Christy Mihos is still plugging along at 7%, though he splits with Patrick the 24% of Republicans not supporting Healey. This, to me, is also big news. Healey was the hand-picked successor to Mitt Romney and yet she barely musters 3/4 of her party’s vote. Patrick, on the other hand, slugged it out in a three-way primary in which he didn’t win a majority and now enjoys the support of over 80% of Democrats. I can’t say whether or not this is due to the candidates themselves, the cohesion of the respective parties or is an accidental result of the poll, but it must be worrying for Healey and the Massachusetts Republican party establishment (both of them, not including Healey) to know that their chosen one isn’t exactly pulling the party together. Whatever coattails Healey was going to have, given the few Republicans running downticket, are disappearing quickly.