Poll Says HHH Will Take State

A prominent Boston pollster predicted yesterday that Hubert H. Humphrey will win a "substantial" victory over Richard M. Nixon in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

According to John Becker, president of Becker Research Corporation, a firm that has polled for Governor John A. Volpe (R-Mass.) and Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass.), there is a "hidden" Wallace vote that will siphon off potential Nixon strength.

Becker conducted a state-wide poll in late September for the Boston Globe which gave Humphrey 44 per cent of the vote, Nixon 31, and Wallace 8, with 17 per cent undecided, but he feels that much of the large undecided vote will support Wallace.

"There has never been anything like this before in the national polling industry," Becker said, "but there is a precedent for us in the 1966 White-Hicks (Boston) mayoralty race."

In that contest, Mrs. Louise Day Hicks appealed to the lower middle class Irish backlash sentiment. The last poll before that election revealed an unusually high undecided vote of 25 per cent. Since White held a two to one lead, the undecided should have split two to one for him, but Mrs. Hicks captured 23 per cent of this vote to 2 per cent for White.

Nixon and Wallace are competing for this conservative, "anti" vote and Becker said that Nixon is too unpopular in the state to be a threat to Wallace's constituency. According to a spring poll conducted by Becker, 48 per cent of Massachusetts voters have an unfavorable opinion of Nixon. Pollsters consider any negative rating over 25 per cent a fatal omen for a state-wide candidate.