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Five Things To Watch In Massachusetts
The stakes for Tuesday’s special Senate election in Massachusetts couldn’t be higher. At play: the Democrats’ 60-seat supermajority — and, potentially, the fate of President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform legislation.
But as Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown head into the rare mid-January race, just who will show up at the polls remains something of a mystery.
“Conventional wisdom is, the high turnout favors the Democrat. But in a special election, high turnout is volatile because you don’t know who’s showing up,” said Scott Ferson, a Democratic strategist in the state.
Making the vote even tougher to predict: the weather. Tuesday’s forecast calls for a mix of snow and rain, with temperatures in the low 30s.
To make some sense of the early returns, POLITICO put together a guide of five things to watch as the results come in, after polls close at 8 p.m.
1.) Look at the South Shore
It’s no coincidence that Brown’s campaign imagery has highlighted his Everyman appeal. An early ad showed him riding his pickup truck across the state, he’s spent time campaigning in the cold outside Fenway Park, and his “People’s Tour” rally featured New England sports heroes such as Red Sox great Curt Schilling and former Boston College football star Doug Flutie.
There couldn’t be a greater contrast with Coakley, who often has exuded an entitled image on the campaign trail, no more clearly illustrated than when she expressed her preference, in an interview with the Boston Globe, for meeting with party leaders instead of glad-handing supporters. (A telling statistic: Brown has made 66 campaign stops since the primary, while Coakley has made only 19, as of Sunday.)
Her apparent confusion about Schilling — in a radio interview, she mistakenly said he was a Yankees fan — only fueled voters’ perception of her as out of touch.
Brown’s narrative has clearly hit a chord with working-class voters, who normally vote Democratic but sound receptive to the Republican’s message in a state where Democrats control all facets of government and the economy is sputtering.
Even though organized labor has lined up behind Coakley’s campaign, a Suffolk University poll conducted last week showed Brown leading Coakley 53 percent to 45 percent among voters in union households. The big test for Brown is whether he can hold onto the blue-collar crowd and mobilize them to the polls.
In a late play for this demographic, Coakley’s campaign and its allies launched an attack portraying Brown as a Wall Street Republican for opposing Obama’s proposed tax on large banks. The Coakley campaign also scrambled to put out a TV ad one day before the election showing her politicking with union members at an American Legion hall.
To get a sense of whether Brown is winning the working-class vote, look no further than early returns from the heavily Democratic Irish Catholic South Shore, where Obama suffered significant drop-offs from John Kerry’s vote in 2004. Brown needs to carry the towns of Braintree and Weymouth, two Democratic strongholds that Obama barely held in 2008.
If Brown wins 55 percent in neighboring Quincy, which Obama carried by 18 points (58 percent to 40 percent), it would be devastating to the Coakley campaign.
2.) Watch for signs of life from the Democratic machine
Brown has campaigned on a message of taking on the state’s entrenched Democratic majority, but it’s that very machine that is crucial to Coakley’s ability to win.
That get-out-the-vote effort will be centered in Boston and the academic hub of Cambridge, the liberal base of the state, which needs to come out strongly for Coakley to prevail. Obama’s last-minute rally for Coakley in Boston was a recognition that the campaign needs to re-energize his 2008 coalition, particularly getting young, African-American and Hispanic voters to the polls.
In Boston, her biggest ally is longtime Mayor Thomas Menino, whose urban political machine is legendary and helped him comfortably win reelection last year, despite opposing Democratic challengers running on a Brown-like message of change.
But last month’s Democratic primary results suggest she can’t automatically assume enthusiastic support: Even though Coakley won most municipalities across the state, Rep. Michael Capuano outpolled her in Boston and Cambridge.
“I think turnout in the Boston area is crucial,” said Andy Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
Coakley also needs proportionally higher turnout in the Democratic-leaning cities of Springfield and Worcester, where party get-out-the-vote efforts have also been concentrated. In 2008, Obama won 77 percent of the vote in Springfield and 68 percent of the vote in Worcester.
Coakley needs around 35 percent turnout in those core areas, analysts estimate, with about a 50,000-to-60,000-vote margin in Boston and a 15,000-to-20,000-vote margin in Cambridge. One plugged-in Massachusetts Democratic strategist said he’s hoping for 40 percent turnout in the cities to feel good about Coakley’s chances — enough to offset what he expects to be a strong Brown performance in the suburbs.
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3.) The I-495 suburbs
The last Republican to win statewide office in Massachusetts, former Gov. Mitt Romney, outlined the winning strategy for the GOP in a solidly Democratic state: Rack up big margins of victory in the outer Boston suburban towns, particularly those along the I-495 ring.
This part of the state is among the most Republican (at least by Massachusetts standards) and is home to many voters who are new to the region and the state. Voters here are resistant to high taxes — anti-tax referendums poll well here — and Obama’s health care plan is most likely viewed unfavorably as well.
Brown needs to win at least 55 percent of the vote in this area, particularly in high-growth places like Marlborough, Taunton and Haverhill — three towns that Romney carried by double digits in 2002 but Obama won in 2008. He’ll also need to rack up double-digit margins of victory in his home base around Wrentham and Foxborough.
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, said his most recent data showed Brown expanding his lead in the crucial suburban bellwethers of Gardner, Fitchburg and Peabody — a sign, he said, that the race was “opening up.”
“Brown could have a 10-point lead here,” said Paleologos.
4.) The female vote
Since the beginning of her campaign, Coakley has targeted female voters as part of her call to break the glass ceiling in the male-dominated political culture of Massachusetts. If she wins, Coakley would become the first female senator in the state’s history.
The latest Public Policy Polling survey shows a significant gender gap: Coakley leads among women by 4 points, 50 percent to 46 percent, and Brown dominates among men, 56 percent to 41 percent.
But recent history suggests that women can make the difference in a close race. Obama carried male voters in the 2008 presidential primary, according to exit polling, but Hillary Clinton prevailed, thanks to an electorate that was 58 percent female.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party, keenly aware of the need to rally women to Coakley’s side, launched a blistering attack over the weekend, alleging that Brown wanted to turn away rape victims from hospitals.
If those tactics effectively rally women to the polls, it’s a good sign for Coakley. So take a close look at the composition of the electorate on election night. If women make up a clear majority, according to exit polls, Coakley may have an edge.
5.) Vicki Kennedy’s impact
Endorsements don’t always have an impact in high-stakes races, but Democrats say Vicki Kennedy’s late endorsement of Coakley could prove pivotal in her last-minute push to win the Cape and the southeastern part of the state — where the Kennedy family name still rings strong.
“I think Kennedy’s endorsement in the last days is the factor that is most likely to get into people’s conscience,” said James Roosevelt, a Massachusetts member of the Democratic National Committee. “I think if we see a result that is different from what the poll is showing, that will be in part because of the Kennedy endorsement.”
Barnstable and Plymouth counties along Cape Cod are the places where Kennedy’s memory would most likely rescue Coakley in the eleventh hour. If she wins those counties — bellwether areas that Obama won narrowly in 2008 — it is a good sign for her campaign.
Jeffrey Berry, a Tufts University political scientist, cautioned that Coakley can’t rely on the Kennedy family name to pull her across the finish line.
“I think Democrats are surprised that the Kennedy seat might be going Republican, but most voters don’t relate Coakley to the Kennedy family.”
In a sign that voters in the state might not be looking for a candidate to carry on the Kennedy legacy, Kennedy last week called her late husband’s seat “the people’s seat,” not the “Kennedy seat,” in a closing Coakley ad.
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Sources: MSNBC, Politico, Google Maps
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