Baker Takes Big Lead Over Coakley in MA Governor’s Race

In the race to become Massachusetts next governor, Republican Charlie Baker leaped to a comfortable 9-point advantage over Democrat Martha Coakley, 45 – 36 percent. That,  according to a new poll from the Boston Globe.

A previous poll from just last week had them running even.

Baker’s surge is said to have come mostly from Independents, a category Deval Patrick relied upon for victory in 2006 and 2010. The Globe also points out that the more people get to know Baker, the more they seem to like him. That can’t be a bad thing in the final weeks of a campaign when many voters only begin to start paying attention.

“There is just positive movement in every single metric we can ask around Baker,” said pollster John Della Volpe, chief executive of SocialSphere Inc., which conducts the weekly poll for the Globe. “The more voters have gotten to know him, the stronger he performs.”

Overall, Baker has moved from 38 percent support to 45 percent since late August. Coakley dropped 5 points this week, the poll found, after having held steady throughout much of the fall. Baker’s growth, said Della Volpe, has come almost entirely from voters who have made up their minds since the beginning of September. Eleven percent of voters remain undecided.