Last week, I wrote about some encouraging signs for Republicans in Massachusetts. Stacy was also up on the main site with a piece about Barney Frank’s Republican challenger. But unlike in the January special election, the Democrats aren’t taking this lying down.
In two trips to Massachusetts before that election, I saw exactly one Martha Coakley sign. It was in Boston. There was literally no indication of palpable grassroots enthusiasm for Coakley in the suburbs and very little of it in the urban Democratic strongholds. As evidenced by signage at least, an imperfect indicator, Deval Patrick looks strong in the places you’d expect him to be strong: Boston, Cambridge, Newton, Brookline. There were a fair number of Barney Frank signs in Newton. Charlie Baker signs were much thinner on the ground than Scott Brown signs and bumper stickers earlier this year.
Even Brown, despite doing nearly everything right while his Democratic opponent did nearly everything wrong, only won with 52 percent of the vote. So Massachusetts Republicans wishing to replicate his success are going to have to pull out close races against Democrats who aren’t taking the election for granted.