It’s been a tougher campaign than expected for some Northeast Democrats like Gov. Dan Malloy (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)
Update: An earlier version of this post spelled Justin Shall’s name wrong.
Four years ago, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) was the favorite in a January special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D). She lost to a state senator named Scott Brown (R), the first siren that alerted Democrats nationally to an angry midterm electorate that year.
Now Coakley is running for governor, and Bay State Democrats are getting a sickening sensation of deja vu: Three reputable polling firms show Coakley statistically tied with businessman Charlie Baker (R) with less than four weeks to go before Election Day.
National party strategists on both sides started the year focusing on governor’s races in just a handful of mega-states: Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan. Now they’re dealing with a much larger electoral map, as voter unrest puts an unexpected number of gubernatorial contests in play — and leaves Democrats on defense in states they ordinarily win.
That’s especially true in the Northeast, with Republican candidates performing surprisingly well in states like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland and Connecticut.
Voters are fed up with politicians at every level, say polls, whether in Congress or at the state house. This year’s midterm elections are likely to turn on voter anger directed at incumbents. In races without actual incumbents seeking re-election, political analysts say, voters can register dissatisfaction by casting ballots against the party they perceive to be in charge, even in states with overwhelming advantages for one party: no Republican has won an electoral vote from any of those four states since George H.W. Bush won Maryland and Connecticut in 1988.
In a state like Massachusetts, that works against Democrats. Gov. Deval Patrick (D) is retiring after two terms with healthy approval ratings, but voters take a dim view of the Democratic-dominated state legislature. Republicans have had success in recent gubernatorial elections — Patrick broke a 16-year streak of Republican control of the governor’s mansion — when they are able to portray Democratic candidates as products of Beacon Hill.
“People in this state, which is dominated by the Democratic Party, will look at the Republican candidate as a balance to the Democratic legislature,” said Maurice Cunningham, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
A Suffolk University poll conducted for the Boston Herald showed 51 percent of voters see Coakley as a Beacon Hill insider, while just 24 percent said she would be a reformer. Forty-six percent of those surveyed told Boston Globe pollsters in August that they preferred the governor and the legislative majority hail from different parties. Every one of the eight public polls released in the last two weeks has showed Coakley and Baker in a statistical tie.
In neighboring Connecticut, voters have the opportunity to weigh in with their views of Gov. Dannel Malloy’s (D) first term — and they don’t like what they see. Just 41 percent of voters and 36 percent of independents have a favorable view of Malloy, who stumbled over tax rebates he promised but failed to deliver, while 51 percent have an unfavorable opinion. Malloy is tied with former U.S. Ambassador Tom Foley (R) at 43 percent apiece, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday, with an independent candidate taking 9 percent, in a state President Obama won with 58 percent of the vote.
Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D) suffers from both an unpopular legislature and the legacy of an unpopular governor he’s trying to succeed. Brown is running to replace Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), whose approval rating has fallen from 54 percent in February to just 41 percent today, according to a Washington Post poll released this week.
A series of recent tax increases has given Hogan an opening: A plurality of Maryland voters say they support repealing recent tax hikes, and more voters trust Hogan, 47 percent, than Brown, 36 percent, to do a better job handling taxes. Thirty percent of voters named taxes as the most important issue they were considering when they evaluated gubernatorial candidates this year, higher than any other issue.
The Washington Post poll showed Brown running ahead of businessman Larry Hogan (R) by a 47 percent to 38 percent margin among likely voters, five points closer than his 13-point advantage among those same voters in a June survey. Hogan’s level of support is five points higher than the percentage of voters who view him favorably, suggesting at least some voters will cast a ballot for him before they even know where he stands.
“People in Maryland, including some Democrats, are bemoaning an uninspired, run-the-clock-out campaign by Brown, who has every structural advantage and needs only to not make any mistakes to win,” said Thomas Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. “I think voters want to hear more from him than ‘third O’Malley term.'”
Brown’s team says their candidate isn’t taking his lead for granted. “We’re very pleased with the direction the race is taking, and we’re encouraged by the polling numbers released by The Washington Post,” said Justin Shall, Brown’s campaign manager. Nonetheless, the Democratic Governors Association is spending millions on negative advertisements attacking Hogan, something a party committee doesn’t typically do for shoo-in candidates.
Republicans also believe they have a chance to take back the governor’s mansion in Rhode Island, where Gov. Lincoln Chafee (D) is retiring. Like Massachusetts, Rhode Island has a long history of electing a Democratic legislature and a non-Democratic governor; Chafee won the governorship as an independent, then later switched to become a member of the Democratic Party. Democrats last elected a governor in 1992, though the party has held big majorities in the legislature ever since.
“There’s a lot of people who think that because the Democrats have such an iron grip on the legislature, you need a Republican to be a check,” said Scott MacKay, a political analyst for Rhode Island Public Radio.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) will appear with Cranston Mayor Allan Fung (R), the Republican nominee, on Friday. Fung trails state Treasurer Gina Raimondo (D), though Raimondo has struggled to coalesce the big Democratic base after angering some unions by backing a plan that cut some pension benefits. The state AFL-CIO declined to endorse in the race after teacher’s unions, which are particularly incensed over the pension cuts, denied Raimondo the two-thirds majority needed to bestow an official blessing.
Democrats aren’t struggling in every New England state: New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) has a big lead over her Republican rival after her first two-year term generated strong approval ratings, and Rep. Mike Michaud (D) has consistently polled ahead of Gov. Paul LePage (R) in Maine.
Even a healthy dose of voter anger may not be enough for Republicans to overcome huge Democratic advantages in all four Atlantic states — but dissatisfaction with the status quo has forced Democrats to spend more money and work harder than anticipated. When voters want change, even the bluest states can take on a purple tinge.
