Perhaps, according to a new Harper Poll -- via Conservative Intel's David Freddoso:
Democratic Congressman Ed Markey holds a formidable 12-point lead over Republican Gabriel Gomez in the race to succeed Secretary of State John Kerry. However, there are clear signs of opportunity for Gomez. Republican and Democratic voters have put their jerseys on for their respective teams as Markey gets 80% of the Democratic vote and Gomez gets 81% of the Republican vote. Among independent voters, the race is tied at 41-41%. -
Over the last few days, we've seen three polls on this election, which is scheduled for one week from Tuesday. One GOP-aligned survey had the race virtually tied, a Suffolk poll pegged Gomez within seven points and gaining, and now this one. You know you're in Massachusetts when a titan of competence like this is up by double digits:
Scott Brown caught lightning in a bottle in 2010. If Gomez can tap into the public's metastasizing distrust of the federal government over the campaign's home stretch and get a little turnout help, he may still have an outside shot at pulling an upset in the Bay State. But the likelihood of engineering a Brown re-run seems fairly remote. Then again, the president just stumped for Markey, so I suppose Team Gomez can take some comfort in the fact that Obama's track record on the campaign trail isn't stellar when people other than himself are on the ballot. See: Coakley, Corzine, Deeds, etc.
UPDATE - The Gomez campaign emails, questioning the validity of the new poll. One example they passed along:
What’s even more strange about the Harper Poll is that they show Markey leading by almost 20 points among 65+ and only by nine among 18-35 year olds. That would be a remarkable shift from ’12 when Scott Brown lost 18-29 year olds by 21 points and lost Seniors by just six. It just doesn’t make sense.
The poll also didn't include any cell phone respondents, which is suggesting of an outmoded methodology.
