| Is there a nurse in the house? Question 1 in big trouble |
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| A new Suffolk/Globe polls shows that 59 percent of surveyed voters now oppose the nurse-staffing Question 1, in a major turnaround from only a few months ago when the ballot question received majority support from voters, reports the Globe’s Matt Stout. The change in sentiment apparently isn’t due to the big bucks being thrown around in the contest. Instead, it’s more personal, with most saying they were swayed by the “input from a nurse they personally know,” Stout writes.
Btw: The same poll shows Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, continuing to hold commanding leads in their respective re-election bids, though Warren’s support seems to be slipping a bit and a majority of voters don’t want her running for president in 2020. See post immediately below for more details on the latter. Btw, II: The Globe’s Liz Kowalczyk takes a look at the debate over what “unsafe staffing’’ means in the Question 1 battle. |
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| Deval Patrick must be smiling this morning … |
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| This is interesting: The new Suffolk/Globe poll released yesterday shows that a whopping 68 percent of surveyed voters don’t want U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for president, though a solid majority support her bid for re-election. Here’s the fascinating part in the story by the Globe’s Matt Stout: “Many said if they had to choose, they would prefer it be former governor Deval Patrick — not (Warren) — seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination in 2020. Fifty-one percent said they would opt for Patrick, compared to just 21 percent for Warren.”
Patrick’s gets a further boost at Atlantic magazine: ‘The former Massachusetts governor hopes the 2020 presidential race comes down to character—the candidates’ and the country’s.’
As for Warren, the Globe’s Victoria McGrane reports that she continues to push ahead with a potential presidential run, regularly using Republican challenger Geoff Diehl as a Trump stand-in. WGBH’s Mike Deehan reports on the fine line Diehl himself is walking these days. The two candidates debate tonight on WCVB-TV at 6:30 p.m. |
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| Poll: Voters are concerned about traffic congestion – but most don’t want to pay to fix the problem |
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| In the same Suffolk/Globe poll, Massachusetts voters did agree on one thing: Traffic congestion in the state is growing worse. But Kristin LaFratta at MassLive notes that 48.4 percent of survey respondents say they don’t want to pay higher taxes or fees to address the problem, while 44.6 percent said they would support such revenue measures. File under: ‘Go figure.’
Meanwhile, Chris Dempsey of Transportation for Massachusetts and Phineas Baxandall of Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center write at the MetroWest Daily News that they welcome much-needed investments to repair the state’s transportation network. But they think there’s a problem with the state’s new capital investment plan: It’s inadequate to the needs. |
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| State leaders: Armed guards at synagogues and churches are not the answer |
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| In the wake of this past weekend’s mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, Gov. Charlie Baker, Senate President Karen Spilka and House Speaker Robert DeLeo disagreed with President Trump’s assertion that armed guards are the solution to such incidents, reports Shira Schoenberg at MassLive and SHNS’s Matt Murphy (pay wall).
But Amy Saltzman and Eli Sherman at Wicked Local report that congregations across Massachusetts are indeed mulling changes to security measures after the weekend massacre. In Boston yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions denounced the attacks, even as some protesters outside the event “blamed the Trump administration for creating a climate where hate can flourish,” reports Schoenberg in a separate piece at MassLive. The Globe’s Joan Vennochi wonders why it took Sessions ten minutes into his speech at a Federalist Society event to finally address the Pittsburgh tragedy. |
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