Half of New Hampshire voters won’t consider Deval Patrick, Suffolk/Globe poll shows

Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick talked to customers at The Works Cafe in Concord Monday. Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff

About half of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire say they won’t consider voting for former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick because he waited too long to jump into the crowded presidential field, according to a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released Monday.

Asked which came closest to their opinion, fifty percent of those polled said Patrick waited too long and they won’t consider voting for him, while 43 percent said they’re open to considering him. Six percent said they were undecided.

Patrick tied Senator Amy Klobuchar with 1 percent support in the poll, which was conducted Nov. 21 to Nov. 24, about a week after Patrick announced his candidacy for president.

“This result tells us that automatically, half the likely voters in New Hampshire are off the table for him,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the poll.

But Paleologos noted that 43 percent are still open to considering Patrick, and that among voters who said Biden was their first choice, 57 percent said they’d be open to considering Patrick.

“I think that’s the lane Patrick wants to go down,” Paleologos said.

Still, the level of support from respondents leaves Patrick tied with Klobuchar for 10th place, behind many of the so-called second tier of candidates who are struggling to break through in the polls, including Senators Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and businessman Tom Steyer.

Most respondents — 53 percent — said they were still open to changing their mind before going to the polls in February, but just two percent named Patrick as their second choice.

Patrick has acknowledged that he faces long odds for becoming the nominee, calling his run a “Hail Mary from two stadiums over” in an interview with the Globe earlier this month.

Patrick also has a ways to go to catch up to other candidates who have been making contact with New Hampshire voters for nearly a year. Just one percent of poll respondents said they had heard from Patrick’s campaign directly, compared to 39 percent who said they heard from the campaign of Senator Elizabeth Warren, and 37 percent who reported hearing from Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

“He’s late to the party and you can’t be fashionably late with New Hampshire voters. New Hampshire voters want you to be granular, they want to see you, they want to shake your hand,” Paleologos said.

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who like Patrick was a last-minute entry into the race, missed New Hampshire’s filing deadline and will not appear on the ballot.

The Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of 500 likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.