It's tough to be a Republican Governor of an extremely blue state. Just ask Mitt Romney.

Nearly two-thirds of Massachusetts voters have a favorable impression of Gov. Mitt Romney and more than half think it's OK for him to leave the door open for a run for president even as he campaigns for a second term as governor, a new poll found.

But Romney's re-election is far from assured, with Romney and top Democratic rival Attorney General Tom Reilly running in a statistical dead heat for governor according to the University of Massachusetts poll.

The poll, conducted by the university's Lowell campus, also found that voters are more likely to trust state lawmakers than Romney when it comes to decisions about taxes and program cuts.

This story, coming from the patently partisan Boston Herald, leaves the most important part of this poll for the 10th graf.

For Reilly, who has yet to announce his candidacy for governor, the poll held a kernel of good news. The poll had 45 percent of voters choosing Reilly and 41 percent choosing Romney in a head to head match, a statistical dead heat.

I'm not sure how beating an incument who is stuck at 41% is just a "kernel of good news" for Reilly. In fact that's amazing news, should he decide to run. First New York and now Massachusetts... this is not a bad day for blue state Dems.