Gabrieli's revenge

Published Apr 10 2006, 05:49 PM by Adam Reilly

Not that that's his motivation, necessarily, but this new poll strongly suggests that Chris Gabrieli is sucking tons of support from Tom Reilly and barely any from Deval Patrick.

Consider: five weeks ago, Reilly led Patrick, 47 percent to 37 percent, among likely Democratic primary voters. Now Patrick's at 36 percent and Reilly at 33, with Gabrieli at 19 and undecideds at 11. That's a 14-percentage-point drop for Reilly, compared to just one for Patrick.

These results aren't wildly surprising--back when he was the frontrunner, I kept hearing that support for Reilly was broad but not deep, and Patrick's inspired a quasi-religious devotion among his backers. So here's my question: just how solid is Reilly's core? My hunch is, Reilly's numbers drop even further if Gabrieli has a few good weeks. But I could be totally wrong.

Thoughts, anyone?