Monday, January 18, 2010

Obama and the Massachusetts Race

If Martha Coakley loses tomorrow it will certainly have a lot to do with her running a poor campaign, but ultimately it will be a repudiation of the President.

Scott Brown is winning 20% of the vote from people who voted for Barack Obama last year, but these are not people who think he's doing a great job and just think Coakley is a duddy candidate. For the most part it's people who voted for Obama and aren't happy with how he's performed in office. Among the Obama/Brown voters just 22% approve of the President's work and only 13% support his health care plan.

Coakley is leading Brown 87-10 among voters who still approve of Obama, so it's not as if she's losing a ton of support from people who are still happy with him. Brown has a 96-3 lead with ones who disapprove of Obama.

Coakley has run a bad campaign, no doubt. But the state of the race in Massachusetts is more a function of unhappiness with Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats than anything having to do with her.

2 comments:

  1. headline is right on, throw the bums out. Mass voters are upset with Governor Patrick, the speaker of the house, a former speaker and bunch of other pols who behaved badly while in office. I think the frustration in Mass is more with Beacon Hill than with Capitol Hill or Obama.

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  2. "Anonymous said...

    headline is right on, throw the bums out. Mass voters are upset with Governor Patrick, the speaker of the house, a former speaker and bunch of other pols who behaved badly while in office. I think the frustration in Mass is more with Beacon Hill than with Capitol Hill or Obama."


    Scott Brown ran on directly opposing views related to the Obama administration, and against the obscene "health care reform" bill they were trying to ram down our throats. The frustration may have included the local politic, but Brown won BECAUSE he ran against everything the Obama administration is trying to achieve. To say it has nothing to do with Obama, or with Capitol Hill is ridiculous, and exactly what this administration is doing. Refusing to listen to the people and burying their heads in the sand. Unbelievable.

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