Their deputies running for Lieutenant Governor are Tim Murray, Patrick’s running mate and the former mayor of Worcester, Richard Tisei, the State Senate Minority Leader, and Stein’s deputy, Holyoke resident and activist Rick Purcell. In a surprise twist, Cahill’s partner, former state representative Paul Loscocco, dropped out of the race, as support for the third-party candidate and State Treasurer dwindled.

With Patrick and Baker locked in a statistical dead heat, according to recent Boston Globe polls, the contest appears to be coming down to the two major parties’ candidates, Murray and Tisei.

Murray, a native of Worcester, attended Fordham University in New York, and then attended law school at the Western New England College School of Law in Springfield. He made his debut in politics in 1997, serving on the Worcester City Council. He remained on the council until he was elected mayor in 2001. He was the Bay State’s second-largest city’s mayor for three terms. As mayor, Murray was the chair of the Worcester School Committee, which includes some 24,000 students, according to his website.

In Nov. 2006, he was elected Lieutenant Governor after he beat out Democratic opponents Deborah Goldberg and Andrea Silbert to win a spot on the ticket with Deval Patrick.

During his term in as Lieutenant Governor, Murray has served on the Governor’s Council on Veterans’ Services, the Governor’s
Councils on Housing and Homelessness, and has worked with the railroad corporation CSX to bolster commuter and freight rail traffic in the Commonwealth, according to his website, timmurray.org. Murray has also taken over the position of Eastern Region Chair of the National Lieutenant Governors Association Executive Committee and is the Secretary-Treasurer of the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Associatoin.

The 48-year-old Tisei, Baker’s running mate, represents the Middlesex and Essex district of the state in the Massachusetts Senate. The Wakefield, Mass. native graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. and almost immediately ran for state representative. He became the youngest Republican ever elected to the Massachusetts General Court when he won office in 1984.

He served as a state representative until 1990, when he won a seat in the State Senate. Also in 1990, he was tabbed as former governor William Weld’s Campaign Chairman, according to his website, richardtisei2010.com. In 1997, he became assistant minority leader, taking over as Senate Minority Leader in January 2007.

According to his site, Tisei earned a high rating of 93 for fiscal conservatism from the anti-tax organization Citizens for Limited Taxation. He also voted against the Commonwealth’s recent sales tax increase. Among the legislative accomplishments his website lists are his involvement in a 1993 welfare reform law, and his sponsorship of the Whistleblower Protection Law. He also worked on a State House effort to shelter health care industry workers who report their employers for patient abuse and unsafe conditions from retribution, according to his campaign’s site.

Tisei, who is openly gay, is also the owner of Northrup Realtors, based in Lynnfield, Mass.

Purcell, the Green-Rainbow Party candidate running alongside gubernatorial candidate Jill Stein, is a resident of Holyoke, and, according to his campaign’s site, rickpurcell.org, “a distinguished community activist,” as well as a worker in the health care industry and a 10-year veteran of active duty in the U.S. Army.

A native of the Tohatchi Indian Reservation in N.M., Purcell moved to Massachusetts with his family in 1974, splitting time between Holyoke and Chicopee. He served in Operation Desert Storm as an air medic, has worked for Baystate Health Systems and has worked on various community efforts.

Among the efforts he has contributed to are a campaign to fight the privatization of Holyoke’s waste management services, a ballot initiative to start a police commission, and an unsuccessful 2006 run for City Council.

With Patrick and Baker polling at 35 and 34 percent respectively in the latest Boston Globe gubernatorial race poll, the lieutenant governor’s race is sure to be close, as well. In the Sept. 26 poll, Tim Cahill earned 11 percent of the vote, and Stein took four.

Sam Butterfield can be reached at [email protected].