Mass. polls: Ed Markey tops Gabriel Gomez

[Fozzledick]

Massachusetts Democrats could exhale Thursday, as two new polls in the Senate special election show Rep. Ed Markey with a healthy lead over GOP standard-bearer Gabriel Gomez.

A Suffolk University poll has Markey receiving 52 percent of the vote to Gomez’s 35 percent among likely voters, with 11 percent undecided. A poll from WBUR, the NPR affiliate in Boston, shows Markey with an 8-point edge among likely voters, 46 percent to 38 percent, including leaners.

Both polls come as something of a relief for Democrats after a Public Policy Polling survey last week found Markey with only a slender 4-point lead, fueling Democratic fears they could be in for a repeat of the January 2010 special election where Scott Brown claimed a shock victory.

A key difference in the polls is Gomez’s margin among independent voters, who make up a majority of the electorate in Massachusetts. WBUR has him leading Markey 38 percent to 35 percent. When Brown won in 2010, he won those voters by more than 30 points.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/massachusetts-senate-ed-markey-gabriel-gomez-poll-91117.html

[BlueDemKev]

1. Good news, but don't feel satisfied just yet.

Remember, a Boston Globe poll showed Martha Coakley leading Scott Brown by 15 points just nine days before their special election in Jan. 2010, and we all found out just how squishy that lead was. Gomez is leading (although slightly) among independents. Bottom line is every single Democratic voter in Mass. needs to be at the polls on election day.

When we vote, we win. When we stay home, we lose. It's that simple.