BOSTON -- Poll results released Wednesday morning by WBUR show that a strong majority of voters remain unfamiliar with the three Democrats running to unseat Gov. Charlie Baker, whose job approval rating remains sky high as he embarks on the fourth and final year of his first term in office.
While it's been almost a year since those Democrats started campaigning, there is also plenty of time remaining on calendar for candidates to introduce themselves to voters as media coverage of the race and spending by the campaigns will begin to amplify in the weeks and months to come.
Seventy-four percent of voters said they approve of the job Baker's doing as governor, including 67 percent of Democrats, while just 13 percent of voters disapprove.
Meanwhile, environmentalist Bob Massie polled as the most well-known of Baker's Democratic challengers, with 35 percent saying they had heard of him, but only 14 percent having an opinion of the Somerville Democrat and only 7 percent saying that opinion was favorable.
Former state budget chief Jay Gonzalez was the least known with 72 percent of those polled indicating they did not know the Gov. Deval Patrick cabinet secretary, but of the 13 percent who had opinion 12 percent said they viewed Gonzalez favorably.
Former Newton Mayor Setti Warren, who gave up the keys to City Hall last week, had 32 percent name recognition with 11 percent saying they viewed him favorably and 5 percent unfavorable.
The WBUR poll surveyed 504 registered voters from Jan. 5 through Jan. 7 using both landlines and cell phones, and had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. The favorability tests for lesser known candidates, including the three Democrats running for office, were only given to half of the respondents.
The three Republicans running for the U.S. Senate did not fare much better with name recognition than their Democratic gubernatorial counterparts with 80 percent or higher saying they had never heard of state Rep. Geoff Diehl, Beth Lindstrom or John Kingston.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who they are hoping to defeat in her second-term re-election bid, was viewed favorably by 54 percent of those polled, and unfavorably by 38 percent.
Attorney General Maura Healey, who is running for re-election despite calls for her to enter the governor's race, had a favorable-unfavorable split of 40 percent to 17 percent.
With the performance of public transit getting mixed reviews following the brutal cold streak and last week's snowstorm, 45 percent of voters said they approved of how Baker is handling the MBTA, and 19 percent disapproved.
Earlier this week, Democratic House Speaker Robert DeLeo said that apart from a few "snags" he believed the MBTA came through the weather challenge better than in past years, while he could not say the same for the commuter rail system.
Forty-five percent of voters agreed with the speaker, according to the poll, indicating the MBTA had done a better job handling the cold and snow this winter than in past seasons, while just 3 percent said it had been worse and 30 percent said it was the same.
Baker's popularity as a Republican in Massachusetts did not translate to the president, who had a 29 percent approval rating in the poll, and just 33 percent said President Donald Trump was "fit to be president."
"Incompetent," "Idiot," "Childish" and "Unfit," were some of the most popular words used by those polled to describe the president, and 80 percent said Trump's Twitter habits were "inappropriate" given his position.
More people thought Trump was bad for the country, Massachusetts, themselves, foreign relations, the environment, race relations and journalism than good, but the president got good marks for his influence on the economy despite the unpopularity of the new Republican tax law.
Up from January 2017, 43 percent of voters said Trump serving in the White House was good for the economy compared to 29 percent who said it was bad and 20 percent who thought it didn't make much difference.
Only 31 percent of voters, however, said they supported the GOP tax reform law, and 37 percent said it would hurt the economy compared to the 34 percent who thought it would help. Sixty-four percent said they thought the tax changes would mostly help the upper class.
Given Trump's lack of support in Massachusetts, it maybe should come as little surprise that the president's frequent critic and former governor Mitt Romney still has a well of support in Massachusetts.
Reportedly eyeing a run for U.S. Senate in Utah in the wake of Sen. Orrin Hatch's retirement announcement, 54 percent of voters in his former home state said it would be a good idea for Romney to run, while 29 percent though it a bad idea.