Campaign Roundup: Baker Has Slight Lead in Gov. Race

This is the first in a series of roundup articles leading up to Election Day.

With Election Day just ten days away, polls show Republican Charles D. Baker ’79 with a narrow lead over the veteran Massachusetts Democrat and Attorney General Martha M. Coakley in a heated race for governor.

An average compiled by the political aggregator RealClearPolitics shows Baker with a lead of about 4.5 points. One poll shows the race tied, while others show Baker with leads of 4 and 6 points, respectively. Another poll released Thursday night by The Boston Globe shows Baker with a 9-point advantage.

By Kevin H. Lin

Baker, the consensus Republican nominee since long before he won his party’s primary in September, has made a steady march up in the polls; ten months ago, he was 11 points behind Coakley, who is perhaps best known for her frustrating 2010 special election loss to Scott Brown in a U.S. Senate race that generated millions of dollars in out-of-state spending and outsized national media attention.

The Brown loss has followed Coakley, who is once again attracting attention as a weak campaigner. In Massachusetts, Democrats enjoy a significant advantage in registered voters and, almost as critically, in electoral and get-out-the-vote infrastructure.

Coakley is a longtime public servant. Before her current post as attorney general, she was the district attorney for Middlesex County for eight years.

Baker has also served in government at the cabinet level for two Republican governors in the 1990s. In the private sector he has worked as the CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.

In another close race, Seth W. Moulton ’01, a graduate of the Kennedy School, is locked in a tight race with Republican hopeful Richard R. Tisei to represent the 9th Congressional District, including Boston’s north suburbs. Moulton scored a huge win in September when he knocked out longtime Rep. John Tierney in what was widely considered a late-round upset.

In the attorney general race, Maura T. Healey ’92 also looks strong. Healey, who played basketball for the Crimson as an undergraduate, received the endorsement of the Boston Globe earlier this week and would be the first openly gay attorney general.

Harvard affiliates are in action elsewhere across the region, as well. In Rhode Island, polls show Gina M. Raimondo ’93, the state’s treasurer, with a 6-point lead over her Republican challenger.

In Connecticut, Thomas C. Foley ’75 is making his second bid for governor. Foley lost four years ago to Democrat Dannel P. Malloy, whom he is now challenging again. The race has grown increasingly hostile in recent weeks. A Quinnipiac University poll out earlier this week shows it neck and neck.

In Upstate New York, GOP first-timer Elise M. Stefanik ’06 has a safe lead over Democrat Aaron Woolf.

—Staff writer Matthew Q. Clarida can be reached at matthew.clarida@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattClarida.