Governor Charlie Baker and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito entered this re-election year with a combined stash of more than $10 million in their campaign accounts — more than 30 times the sum in all of their Democratic competitors combined.

The Democrats running for governor are environmental activist Bob Massie; Jay Gonzalez, former budget secretary under Deval Patrick; and former Newton mayor Setti Warren. Attorney Quentin Palfrey and comedian Jimmy Tingle are vying to be lieutenant governor, the ticket’s number two position.

None of them raised even a half-million dollars in 2017, according to newly filed campaign finance reports, and none enter 2018 with as much as $100,000 in the bank.

They will all continue spending as fast as they take money in, battling one another through the just-scheduled September 4 primary. The Republican incumbents, facing no serious intra-party challenge, can keep stockpiling. If Baker and Polito raise a similar amount to the $5.5 million they took in during 2017, that will give them roughly twice as much to spend as they did in winning the office four years ago.

Back in 2014, they were assisted by additional millions spent by the state Republican party and others — most lavishly, the Republican Governors Association — who saw a winnable race worth the investment.

It will be awfully difficult for the Democratic nominees to convince their party’s counterparts to do the same. Despite the state’s blue leanings, and indications of a favorable national mood for Democratic candidates, few consider the Massachusetts gubernatorial race competitive.

Neither the Washington Post or Politico included Massachusetts in their recent lists of 10 governor seats most likely to switch party hands in 2018. The major national race-rating groups all confidently predict a Baker victory.

After all, Baker’s popularity remains staggeringly high in poll after poll. In head-to-head polling against the Democratic candidates, Baker has easily topped 50 percent and led by margins of 30 points or more.

The Democrats are stuck in a self-reinforcing rut. If they can’t raise money, their efforts don’t look feasible — which deters people from giving them money.

Veteran Bay State Democrats — including those who write the big checks — have been expecting this almost from the moment Baker defeated Martha Coakley. They are viewing the 2018 Baker re-elect as a replay of Bill Weld in 1994.

That year, state representative Mark Roosevelt served as the Democrats’ sacrificial lamb against the popular incumbent Republican governor (with Massie as Roosevelt’s lieutenant governor nominee). It was a rout: Weld took 70 percent of the vote, winning by more than 900,000 votes.

It’s easy to see parallels. Big-name Democrats, including Congressman Joe Kennedy II, passed on the seemingly unwinnable race in 1994, just as Attorney General Maura Healey, and U.S. Representatives Katherine Clark, Joe Kennedy III, and Seth Moulton did this time around. The result then, as now, was a trio of little-known contenders, struggling to raise money and gain attention in their primary contest. In 1994, it was the “Three Amigos” as Weld dubbed them, of Roosevelt, George Bachrach, and Michael Barrett.

Other campaigns in the state looked far more interesting in 1994 and seemed like smarter investments for Democrats’ dollars than the lopsided gubernatorial race. U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy was fending off a strong challenge from a handsome business tycoon named Mitt Romney. Democrats were trying to win back two congressional seats, won in 1992 by Republicans Peter Blute and Peter Torkildsen.

Similarly, area Democrats today are more interested in funding Elizabeth Warren’s re-election to the U.S. Senate, or contributing to one of the party’s many candidates to succeed Nikki Tsongas in Congress. Those district three candidates have already raised around $4 million, collectively— several times more than the party’s candidates for governor.

A strong economy, and distaste for the Democrat-controlled state legislature, worked in Weld’s favor; they do again for Baker. Even their supposed Achilles heels are similar, both stemming from high-profile transportation fiascos: the bloating Big Dig for Weld and the ill-functioning MBTA for Baker.

What if it gets interesting?

Despite all that, some political observers expect this to become a close race — and they have good reasons to think so.

The question is, will money come to help the Democrat if it does look winnable?

This is not 1994. For one thing, that was a national pro-Republican wave election (propelling Newt Gingrich to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives), which included Bay State victories for both Blute and Torkildsen, and Joe Malone’s re-election as state treasurer. 2018, by contrast, is increasingly looking like an anti-Trump backlash election, with big gains expected for Democrats nationally.

Moreover, many Democrats believe that Baker’s popularity is wide but shallow — that the appeal of his bland competence will prove far less durable than Weld’s witty, off-kilter, opinionated personality.

More importantly, the state has become more reliably Democratic-voting since then — and especially since the 2002-2006 governorship of Mitt Romney, and the 2000-2008 Presidency of George W. Bush.

Since Romney’s narrow 2002 victory, the state has held 21 elections for state-wide office (25 if you include presidential votes). Republicans have won just two of them, both by narrow margins: Scott Brown’s January 2010 special election win over Martha Coakley for U.S. Senate, and Baker’s 40,000-vote squeaker over Coakley for Governor in 2014.

Brown’s fate, losing his seat in 2012, holds a cautionary tale for Baker. Like Baker, Brown looked tremendously popular the year before his re-election — hitting a Baker-esque 73 percent approval in one poll conducted by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Even up to the election he held net positive approval ratings in the state. His opponent, Elizabeth Warren, was essentially unknown prior to the campaign. Brown still lost by nearly 250,000 votes.

As the eventual Democratic nominee gains media exposure, the theory goes, and gets campaign boosts from Senator Warren, former Governor Patrick, and other party stars, the race will inevitably tighten. Instead of a blowout, by October it will look more like a five-point lead, narrowing in the Democrats’ favor.

If that happens, donors will undoubtedly rush to give the nominee cash to help close the sale.

It might be too late. With Baker, Polito, and the state Republican Party flooding the airwaves with their stored-up millions — along with Senator Warren and her opponent — it will take a lot of spending to break through the clutter. Supportive outside groups, including the Democratic Governors Association, will have devoted their funds to other races.

Democrats might end up on election night, as they did in 2014, watching a close contest go Baker’s way against them — wondering whether they blew their chance to do something about it.