CBS Poll: Patrick leads Reilly
The best poll I've seen yet in this year's Governor's race has just been released. According to CBS News, Deval Patrick leads Tom Reilly 36% to 33%. New entry Chris Gabrieli takes 19% with 11% undecided. Sure, that three points is definitely within the margin of error, but things keep looking worse for Reilly. Last month he led 47% to Patrick's 37%. That means Gabrieli has taken much more support from Reilly than from Patrick.
It seems to me that, at this point in the race, Gabrieli has the "Milhous effect" 
(or, some may call it the "The best poll I've seen yet in this year's Governor's race. Deval Patrick leads Tom Reilly 36% to 33%. New entry Chris Gabrieli takes 19% with 11% undecided. Sure, that three points is definitely within the margin of error, but things keep looking worse for Reilly. Last month he led 47% to Patrick's 37%. That means Gabrieli has taken much more support from Reilly than from Patrick.
It seems to me that, at this point in the race, Gabrieli has the "Milhous effect" (or, some may call it the "Nader effect"). That is, enough support to effect the race results but not enough to actually win it himself. In both cases, Deval Patrick is the most well-positioned. Previous polls in this race have shown that, obviously, the independent conservative candidate takes most of his support from Lt. Governor Kerry Healy with either announced Democrat (Patrick or Reilly) coming out on top. Though in this case Patrick is by far the best choice for the Democrats to win the general election: Milhous' support shows the power of independent voters to swing statewide elections in Massachusetts. But I'll bet that over the course of the campaign, Patrick will be able to make many more inroads into independent support than Reilly. Because the Democrats have continually nominated Gubernatorial candidates who seem entrenched and patronage-driven these voters have opted for the seemingly-independent Republican candidates. But Patrick, with his strong opposition from within the party hierarchy and newcomer status, should be able to win support from at least the more liberal independents. That means Patrick wins with the Democrats and liberal independents, Healy is second with Republicans and Milhous brings up the rear with just the moderate-to-conservative indys.
Of course, speculation is just speculation. The election is still seven months away, and while the aforementioned "Nader effect" was minimized by the structure of National elections (that is, due to the electoral college Nader could not have actually won), Gabrieli and Milhous do have a shot at winning the corner office. Still, as it is, the two most recent entrants in to the race could suit Deval Patrick just fine.
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