Can Coakley Close the Deal?
12th January 2010
By Emily Cadei, CQ-Roll Call
Almost since the inception of the special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy , Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has been considered the runaway front-runner.
But with one week to go before Bay State voters head to the polls, the Democratic nominee is now in a tightening contest trying to fend off an unexpectedly competitive challenge from her Republican challenger, state Sen. Scott Brown.
The political narrative — a presumptive special election winner faces a stronger-than-anticipated challenge from an upstart Republican who seems to come out of nowhere — is a familiar one in Massachusetts.
The race’s new dynamic has prompted CQ Politics to change its rating on the race to Leans Democratic, which means Coakley has an edge but the contest appears competitive and an upset may be possible.
That was the same story line in the weeks leading up to the 2007 special election to succeed Democratic Rep. Martin T. Meehan in the 5th District, and now Coakley finds herself in a similar position.
The parallels between the two races underscore the unpredictable nature of special elections, even in dark blue states like Massachusetts, as well as the perils of complacency in front-runner campaigns.
One strategist backing Coakley also cited the 2007 race — which Democratic Rep. Niki Tsongas ultimately won by a closer-than-expected 6-point margin over retired Air Force Officer Jim Ognowski — to illustrate why the party should not hit the panic button.
“Look, these special elections are a complicated matter,” he said. “Turnout is such a question mark.”
However, he said, “We feel good that [Coakley is] going to win on Jan. 19.”
A number of other Democratic strategists in Washington, D.C., and Boston agreed that Coakley remains poised to win the race, though they do not dispute the fact that it has tightened considerably in recent weeks.
“Democrats should be worried because the race has gotten this close. There’s no way to spin it,” said Scott Ferson, a Democratic political consultant based in Boston. But “will Martha Coakley lose? I find that very hard to believe,” said Ferson, a former press secretary to Kennedy, whose death in August triggered the special election.
The polling picture is fractured: The Boston Globe, in a poll released Sunday, had Coakley leading Brown by 15 points, and an internal Democratic poll circulated Monday shows her up 14 points.
But a Rasmussen Reports poll released last week showed Brown trailing by just 9 points and a Public Policy Polling survey released Jan. 9 showed the race in a statistical dead heat.
However, Scott Rasmussen of Rasmussen Reports observed in an analysis of the polling Monday that all three independent surveys “show Coakley right around the 50 percent mark,” which, he said, would make the race “hers to lose.”
In general, Democratic strategists believe Coakley is neither as far ahead as the most favorable polls show her to be, nor is she in a dead heat with Brown, as the PPP survey purports.
“I believe we’re comfortably ahead,” said one Democratic party strategist, who spoke on background so as to discuss the race candidly. But, he added, “In this climate and this environment I wouldn’t take anything for granted.”
The uncertainty, driven by the unpredictable turnout and national political unrest, has generated hope among national Republicans, who are flocking to Brown, as well as a scramble among Democrats, who hope to counter GOP energy with their own turnout operation.
The lower the turnout, the more it benefits Brown, as Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com observed in an analysis Monday. He noted that among those voters extremely interested the race was even in the Globe and Rasmussen polls, but Coakley led comfortably when moderately and less committed voters were included in the tally.
The GOP enthusiasm for Brown has been swift and sudden. After campaigning in near obscurity since September, Brown’s campaign began to gain traction over the holidays, thanks in part to his pitch to become the 41st Senate vote against the Democrats’ health care reform legislation.
The American Future Fund is spending $400,000 on an ad attacking Coakley’s position on taxes and Brown has received several endorsements from high-profile Republicans. A spokesman for Our Country Deserves Better said it plans to begin airing ads in the days leading up to the election.
On Monday, Brown raised more than $700,000 through a “MoneyBomb” campaign online.
The national party, however, has yet to report any independent expenditure spending on Brown’s behalf, which would be a sure sign the party thinks it has a chance to win the seat.
Democrats, meanwhile, blame the national climate, as well as Coakley’s low profile on the campaign trail of late, for Brown’s recent surge in momentum. But they believe the dynamics will shift in the race’s final week.
“The guy’s been on TV a lot,” said the strategist supporting Coakley. “He’s been communicating free and clear here for a while.”
“Martha just started her TV and its heavy, she’s got a lot of point behinds it,” he added. Indeed, Brown is now airing his fourth TV ad of the general election, while Coakley is only on her second.
Ferson said Coakley needs to be more aggressive down the stretch. “You have to actually give people a reason to vote for you,” he said, likening her behavior to the Tsongas campaign in the 2007 special election. “You got to close the deal, and she has not closed the deal.”