At this point, I’ve run out of ways to describe how politically vulnerable Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee is.
So let’s try being direct: With just over two weeks to go until the Democratic primary, McKee would need something approaching a political miracle to come from behind and defeat challenger Helena Buonanno Foulkes.
That’s according to a new poll from Emerson College and WPRI 12, which finds Foulkes with a commanding 45 percent to 30 percent lead over McKee among Democratic primary voters.
The survey of 522 likely primary voters, conducted Aug. 21-22, found 25 percent undecided. But even that doesn’t offer much comfort to McKee: When Emerson includes voters who have already cast ballots and allocates undecided voters based on their leanings, Foulkes’ advantage grows to 61 percent to 39 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
“Dan McKee has closed the gap some, but he’s still well behind with 15 days to go,” WPRI political analyst Joe Fleming said. “Time is running out to make up the ground.”
There is a more charitable way for McKee to read the poll: He’s gained ground.
In May, an Emerson/WPRI poll had Foulkes ahead, 40 percent to 20 percent. More recent polls from the University of New Hampshire and Salve Regina University have also shown Foulkes maintaining a lead of 20 percentage points.
But campaigns don’t get credit for losing by less.
The poll released Tuesday comes after McKee has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television ads attacking Foulkes’ record as an executive at CVS, and following two primetime television debates, a radio debate. and more forums and discussions than anyone can count.
Foulkes has countered with millions of dollars in advertising promoting her own campaign, and she’s poised to continue spending through primary day. McKee, facing a large fund-raising deficit, was forced to largely go dark on television in recent weeks to save money for the final stretch of the campaign.
Now that the final stretch is here, there’s very little for McKee to be hopeful about.
Among likely Democratic primary voters, 22 percent believe Rhode Island is on the right track, while 53 percent believe it’s on the wrong track, according to the Emerson/WPRI poll. On the Washington Bridge crisis, just 22 percent approve of the job McKee has done, while 63 percent disapprove.
The education divide is particularly striking. McKee leads Foulkes 61 percent to 22 percent among voters with a high school education or less. But among college graduates, Foulkes leads 49 percent to 23 percent, and among voters with postgraduate degrees, she leads 58 percent to 23 percent.
The high-school-or-less sample is relatively small, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in that one number. But the broader pattern is hard to miss: Foulkes’ support rises sharply as educational attainment rises, while McKee’s does the opposite.
McKee and Foulkes are statistically tied among union households, but “he would need to win the unions by a lot” to make up ground, Fleming told me.
That has been the fundamental challenge for McKee. He hasn’t fallen on his face during this campaign, but he has never been able to dig out of the deep hole he’s been in for years. That’s largely because of his handling of the Washington Bridge closure, but as he likes to point out, Foulkes was challenging him long before Dec. 11, 2023.
With the exception of the bizarre declaration that “I am the state of Rhode Island” in last week’s WPRI debate, McKee has more than held his own against Foulkes in recent debates. He has also stockpiled union endorsements, even as he was rebuked for the more coveted AFL-CIO endorsement.
And yet, the poll shows just how little any of that has mattered. McKee has had his chances to change the trajectory of this race. He just hasn’t been able to change it enough.
Fifteen days might be a long time in politics. It just isn’t very long when you’re 15 points behind.
Dan McGowan can be reached at dan.mcgowan@globe.com. Follow him @danmcgowan.