Race Analysis

10/28/14 -- Coakley has led in only two of the last eight polls. A Baker win is a real possibility.

10/7/14 -- Could this be 2010 redux? Coakley and Baker are neck-and-neck, but neither candidate is anywhere near 50 percent. The smart money probably says that the undecideds break Democratic in a state like Massachusetts. But this isn't always the case, as Coakley knows too well.

10/1/14 -- This race has clearly tightened over the past few weeks, with Baker drawing well within the error margin. Given Massachusetts' history, a Baker upset of Coakley can't be viewed as out of the question. But make no mistake: It would still be an upset.

----------Race Preview----------

For years, Republicans dominated Massachusetts. Some of the most prominent Republicans in history came out of Bay State politics: Charles Sumner, both Lodges, Calvin Coolidge. These were blue-blooded Yankees, with a passion for social reform movements and a belief in cautious taxing and spending. But underneath this Yankee dominance was a growing Irish Democratic presence. By the late 1800s it had turned Boston into a largely Democratic city; by the 1930s it had made the state Democratic in national elections; and by the 1960s it was donkeys all the way down.

As the Irish immigrants and their descendants progressed upwards through society, their political views became increasingly liberal, and by the late 1980s the Democrats had mostly absorbed the state’s Republican establishment. The last true Irish Democrat vs. Yankee Republican race came in 1990, when liberal Republican William Weld won the governorship. The Republican Party is now virtually extinct in the state legislature, but the party has nevertheless won four of the last six governor’s races. The Republican path to victory is simple: Present oneself as a check on the solidly Democratic legislature.

The Democratic wave of 2006 was powerful enough that this argument failed badly, and the state went heavily for Deval Patrick, the state’s first African-American governor. Patrick won re-election by what turned out to be a surprisingly comfortable margin in 2010. This year is an open seat, and Democrats nominated Martha Coakley, who lost a Senate race to Scott Brown in 2010. Unsuccessful 2010 candidate Charlie Baker is back for the Republicans. Coakley has an edge, albeit a small one, but there are a large number of undecideds, and they may well be primed to break for her, given the overall ideological makeup of the state.