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Poll: Patrick still has slight edge in governor's race

Print | Comments () Posted by Martin Finucane October 18, 2010 11:55 AM

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Patrick is in a close race with Baker, while Cahill and Stein trail far behind.

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Governor Deval Patrick still holds a slight lead over Republican challenger Charles Baker, according to a poll taken over the weekend.

Patrick garnered 47 percent of the votes, while Baker had 42 percent of the vote in a telephone survey report by Rasmussen Reports taken Saturday night, just after President Obama had come to town on a whirlwind visit to stir up support for the Democratic incumbent.

Independent Timothy Cahill was a distant third with 6 percent of the vote, Rasmussen Reports said. Three percent liked "some other candidate" and 2 percent were undecided. Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jill Stein is also in the race.

The poll shows that voters still have doubts about Baker, Patrick campaign spokesman Alex Goldstein said in a statement.

"Our campaign continues to be focused on reaching out to voters in every corner of the Commonwealth about the issues they care about most, like job creation, education, and health care," Goldstein said.

Baker's campaign released internal polling last week that showed their campaign was ahead.

"There's going to be a lot of polls between now and Election Day and we're confident based on our own internal polling and the response we've been getting from the voters of Massachusetts that we're coming out ahead," campaign spokeswoman Amy Goodrich said today in a statement.

Patrick and Baker were in the exact same position in today's Rasmussen poll as they were in a poll conducted by the company a month ago, with the former gaining 47 percent and the latter gaining 42 percent.

The survey of 750 likely Massachusetts voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.