NEEDHAM (AP) — With a week before voters go the polls, Republican Charlie Baker and Democrat Martha Coakley have one more opportunity to debate face-to-face before a television audience.
The two major-party candidates are scheduled to meet tonight at the WCVB-TV studios in a debate sponsored by a consortium of Boston media outlets. The three independent candidates — Evan Falchuk, Jeff McCormick and Scott Lively — weren’t invited.
While important for both candidates, the final debate could be more critical for Coakley who’s trying to shake off the perception her campaign has lost momentum.
A poll released yesterday by the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and WHDH-TV found 45 percent of those polled favored Baker while 41 percent supported Coakley. The telephone poll of 601 likely Massachusetts voters was conducted between Oct. 21 and Oct. 25 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Eight percent said they are undecided. The independent candidates received a combined 6 percent.
A Boston Globe poll released last week showed Baker with the support of 45 percent of those polled compared with 36 percent for Coakley, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Coakley says her campaign continues to enjoy strong grassroots support ahead of the Nov. 4 election.
Tonight’s final debate comes one day after the two clashed in Worcester.
Coakley defended herself against a Boston Globe report in which former inspector general Gregory Sullivan said Coakley urged him to pull back from an investigation into former Democratic Massachusetts House speaker Salvatore DiMasi, later convicted in 2011 of federal corruption charges.
Coakley said during yesterday’s debate on New England Cable News that Sullivan is “either flat-out lying or flat-out wrong.”
During the debate Baker said he regretted donating $10,000 to the New Jersey Republican Party in 2011, shortly before that state’s pension fund invested in General Catalyst at a time when Baker was an executive-in-residence for the venture capital firm.
The investment is the subject of an ongoing review by New Jersey treasury department auditors to determine if General Catalyst complied with state regulations regarding the disclosure of political contributions from employees.
Also yesterday, a pro-Coakley Super PAC released a TV ad accusing Baker of outsourcing jobs to India while heading Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. Baker has said he saved thousands of jobs while rescuing the insurer from bankruptcy.
