Time to vote: Races and issues await decisions

Voters heading to the polls on Tuesday will be presented with a choice for governor in a tight race, a chance to repeal the state’s casino law, and votes on three other ballot questions and a number of offices. The polls open in Boston at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.

At the top of the ticket: the governor’s ballot. Republican Charlie Baker and Democrat Martha Coakley are neck and neck in the latest polls and well ahead of independent candidates Evan Falchuk, Jeff McCormack, and Scott Lively.

Coakley was in Dorchester on Saturday at a pre-canvassing rally at the IBEW headquarters on Freeport Street alongside Mayor Martin Walsh, labor leaders, and more than 200 union members. The campaign was seeking to get out in front of a front-page poll story in the Globe on Friday that had Baker nine points up on the attorney general.

Speaker after speaker at the rally took issue with the poll. “The Globe hasn’t been right in a long, long time,” said Ed Kelly, president of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts. “As organized labor, we’re going to prove we’re still as strong as we ever were.”

Said Walsh: “A year ago in this room, it was just like this. Every newspaper was against us. Every headline was against us. But the way we won that race was about knocking on doors.”

Although the Globe endorsed Coakley in her failed bid for a US Senate seat in 2010 against Scott Brown, the attorney general was quick off the mark about the poll story. “I know what kind of record The Boston Globe has,” she said, “They always get it wrong, believe me.”

“We just believe that poll is incorrect,” she told the Reporter. “It has been a neck-and-neck race, we know that. We’re focused on making sure we get our vote out because that’s the only poll that matters.”

State Rep. Dan Cullinane, the labor chair for the Coakley campaign, agreed. “The polling numbers have motivated more people to get out and knock doors,” he said. “People are willing to roll up their sleeves to elect Martha.”

Then, on Sunday online and on Monday morning in print, the Globe endorsed Baker, joining a laundry list of state papers that have supported his candidacy, including the Lowell Sun, the Springfield Republican, and the Patriot Ledger.

In turn, the Coakley campaign kept touting its grassroots support, announcing that volunteers had knocked on 16,697 doors in alone Boston over the weekend.

Baker swung through Mattapan and Dorchester on Sunday, visiting a handful of Mattapan Square businesses with Jean-Claude Sanon, a Haitian-American activist with three unsuccessful runs for Boston City Council under his belt. That evening, when the Globe endorsement had been released, Baker was raising money at the Banshee on Dorchester Avenue alongside At-Large Boston City Councillor Michael Flaherty.

The race for attorney general pits Democrat Maura Healey against Republican John Miller. After an intense primary, Healey bested Democrat Party stalwart Warren Tolman and has enjoyed a healthy lead in the polls ever since. A political newcomer, Healey has campaigned hard on her record in support of social issues that includes a successful challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Miller has campaigned on making the attorney general’s office nonpartisan, going so far as to tell the Springfield Republican last week that he would drop his party affiliation if he is elected.

The auditor race has Republican Patricia Saint Aubin challenging incumbent Suzanne Bump, a Democrat elected in 2010. The Globe threw what some saw as a curveball last week by endorsing St. Aubin, asserting that Bump’s office is “struggling,” not conducting enough audits, not “casting a wide enough net,” and that Saint Aubin “offers a credible alternative” to the incumbent.

Bump is the first female elected to the auditor’s position. During her time at the helm, the auditor’s office went from the point of failing an outside review by the National State Auditor’s Association to receiving its highest rating in 2014. Before running for office, Saint Aubin, a Republican State committeewoman, has worked as an auditor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, and Connecticut Mutual, now MassMutual.

The US Senate race between incumbent Democrat Ed Markey and Republican challenger Brian Herr has drawn little attention. Markey is up for re-election after last year’s special election to replace US Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s and has enjoyed a healthy lead in the polls. The latest WBUR/MassInc survey puts Markey at 57 percent over Herr’s 32, with 8 percent undecided.

In the Treasurer’s race between Democrat Deb Goldberg and Republican Michael James Heffernan, Goldberg comes into the final round with momentum after winning a three-way primary race. She is a former member of the Brookline board of selectmen and a member of the family that founded the Stop&Shop supermarket company. If elected, she has said, she will champion gender wage equality, establish a college savings plan for kindergarteners at no cost to taxpayers, and provide free tax preparation for low-income families. Heffernan touts his experience in senior leadership roles in the financial sector, including CitiGroup’s Markets and Banking division and as co-founder of tech startup Mobiquity, Inc. If elected, he would explore creating a public-private partnership with the state’s financial services sector to help expand financial literacy throughout the state.

The only competitive state representative race in Dorchester is the 5th Suffolk, where incumbent Democrat Evandro Carvalho is hoping to fend off Republican challenger and perennial candidate Claudette Joseph.
Two Democratic candidates, Sheriff Steve Tompkins and state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry, face unenrolled challengers. The sheriff is pitted against Hassan Smith, a former Suffolk County corrections officer fired after being accused of sexual harassment in 2002. Dorcena Forry is being challenged by Robert E. Powers, Jr., a Pierce Avenue resident who has kept a low profile since getting enough signatures to get on the ballot. Powers has no website, campaign funds, signs, nor any presence on the campaign trail ahead of election day.

On the ballot but without challengers: 4th Suffolk state Rep. Nick Collins, 6th Suffolk state Rep. Russell Holmes, 12th Suffolk state Rep. Dan Cullinane, 13th Suffolk state Rep. Dan Hunt, Register of Probate Felix D. Arroyo, 8th Congressional District Congressman Stephen Lynch, and Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.

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