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Elizabeth Warren Surging In Massachusetts Senate Polls

Doug Mataconis
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The Massachusetts Senate race has been neck and neck for much of the summer, but it now appears that Elizabeth Warren is pulling ahead of Scott Brown, even if just slightly:

Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren holds a four point lead over Scott Brown in the high-stakes Massachusetts Senate race, but the contest is still within the margin of error, according to a Suffolk University/7News poll out Monday night.

Warren was backed by 48 percent of those surveyed, while Brown received 44 percent. Eight percent of people polled were undecided or opted for another candidate.

It’s the latest in a series of polls that has Warren up over Brown.

Over the weekend, the Western New England University Polling Institute found Warren leading Brown, 50 percent to 44 percent, while the left-leaning Public Policy Polling firm found this week Warren to be up over Brown, 48 percent to 46 percent. The Harvard Law School professor gave a prime-time address at the Democratic National Convention earlier this month and she has launched an aggressive new ad buy.

According to RealClearPolitics, Warren has led in every poll taken over the past month. The last poll in which Brown led was a Public Policy Poling poll taken in mid-August. Presently, the RCP Average stands at +3.5 in favor of Warren, and you can see the extent of her spike in the chart:

Clearly, Warren is getting some real benefit from her speech and the ad buy. I wouldn’t write Brown off just yet, but I’ve always suspected that it would be difficult for a Republican to win in Massachusetts in a Presidential election year. The polls seem to be confirming that.

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21 responses to “Elizabeth Warren Surging In Massachusetts Senate Polls”

  1. john personna Avatar
    john personna

    I only hear a fraction of the news from the west coast. Scott Brown seems like a nice guy, and plenty moderate (dare I say liberal?). Just the same, I think Warren would be more fun in the Senate. And of course I’d be less worried about her being pulled into Republican party votes.

  2. Andy Gaboury Avatar
    Andy Gaboury

    I’m a Mass voter and this is a tough choice. Scott Brown is the kind of Republican I tend to like and that the GOP needs more of: moderate on fiscal issues, center-left on social stuff. But with the Senate staying tight I can’t imagine voting for him right now. Warren seems like a good choice but it’s more about preventing a GOP Senate for me.

  3. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    And this answers the question of why there aren’t more Republicans like Brown. It doesn’t matter how much people think Republicans need to be more like him if no one actually votes for him.

  4. Rob in CT Avatar
    Rob in CT

    @Stormy Dragon:

    Well, it’s MA. Surely there are states that are more purple/lean-red where a Brown would be a really strong candidate?

    I think there is a feedback loop here. Brown takes some hits because of what the rest of the GOP is like (“it’s more about preventing a GOP Senate for me” says it well). Which, in turn, means there are fewer Browns.

  5. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    All of my friends are Massachusetts liberals or at least left-leaning and they all like Scott Brown quite a bit, but are not going to vote for him because even if Brown is reasonable, they don’t want to hand the senate over to a Republican leadership that is decidedly unreasonable. Unfortunately, it must seem pretty unfair to Brown and other moderate Republicans that even though they may vote the way that their liberal constituents wish on most issues, they’ll still get booted out of office unless they’re running against an evil witch like Martha Coakley.

  6. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    I guess Mitt has coattails after all.

  7. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    Another poll quoted over the weekend–in one of the western Mass. papers–showed that Brown had a 57-35 lead over Warren with registered independents. And Warren still hasn’t been endorsed by the mayor of Boston. He probably will endorse her, eventually, but he’s really holding off on it. There’s apparently some sort of long-running feud between his camp and hers. Warren also doesn’t relate well to white blue collar ethnic voters the way Teddy Kennedy did. Since his death, electoral politics in Massachusetts have become a lot more complicated.

  8. OliviaC Avatar
    OliviaC

    Warren is quite a bit smarter than Brown and now that Brown has served a purpose not easily enlarged upon it’s easy to send him packing.

    So many Republicans thought that Warren’s views on effort, reward and community were out of the American mainstream but it’s one of those takes that brings to mind the idea (Schoepenhauer’s I think) that truth passes through three stages: ridicule, frenzied opposition, culminating in self-evident, traditional regard.

    Her style can wear on a person but she has what Romney lacks: conviction, sensibility and sincerity.

  9. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @Rob in CT:

    My point is that being a moderate didn’t help Brown retain office and if he loses, he’s also not going to have any sort of post political career with conservatives. So what was his incentive to be moderate? He’d personally have been far better off spending the last two years as a raving looney and then hitting the wingnut welfare circuit.

  10. Me Me Me Avatar
    Me Me Me

    As of this morning Scott Brown is going to have to start running against not just Warren but also the former governor of Massachusetts.

  11. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    @Stormy Dragon:

    You are assuming here that every Republican at their core would rather be a raving loon, and they only debase themselves into being a moderate in order to get elected. Couldn’t it simply be the case that he’s a moderate guy, with reasonably center-left social views? And that he doesn’t need an incentive to vote the way he has?

  12. Christopher Bowen Avatar
    Christopher Bowen

    Calling what’s happening a “feedback loop” is pretty apropos. But let’s not forget that even if Brown was reelected, his party hates him the same way they hated the senators from Maine as well. Simply put, they don’t like anyone who doesn’t toe the party line on literally everything. Reagan used to say that someone who agrees with you 80% of the time is your friend, and not your enemy; the party of Reagan, who uses his name so often, would do well to remember that and not push for such dogmatic intellectual purity.

  13. mantis Avatar
    mantis

    @Stormy Dragon:

    My point is that being a moderate didn’t help Brown retain office and if he loses, he’s also not going to have any sort of post political career with conservatives. So what was his incentive to be moderate? He’d personally have been far better off spending the last two years as a raving looney and then hitting the wingnut welfare circuit.

    His loss is not yet assured, but it absolutely would have been had he taken your advice. It’s clear that Brown has every intention of winning reelection, and governed accordingly.

  14. Trumwill Avatar
    Trumwill

    @Christopher Bowen:

    But let’s not forget that even if Brown was reelected, his party hates him the same way they hated the senators from Maine as well.

    I’m not sure that’s true. Brown seems to have gotten an unusual amount of support for a liberal-state Republican in a way that Snowe and Collins don’t.

  15. Christopher Bowen Avatar
    Christopher Bowen

    @Trumwill: I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he had Tea Party support. I think he’s lost a lot of that. He’s not as hated yet, but he also hasn’t participated in some of the votes that the ladies in Maine have.

    Ultimately, I’d honestly not mind electing them both. I like Brown, and I also like Elizabeth Warren. Can we give Massachusetts three senators, and take away one of Missouri’s?

  16. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @Ben:

    You are assuming here that every Republican at their core would rather be a raving loon, and they only debase themselves into being a moderate in order to get elected.

    It’s more a case of assuming that every politician at their core would rather be important, and debases themselves into whatever it takes to remain important. Brown would no doubt most like to remain a senator. But failing that, I’m sure he’d rather be “national news talking head” than “guy who was Senator for two years and was never heard from again”.

  17. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @Christopher Bowen:

    Can we give Massachusetts three senators, and take away one of Missouri’s?

    Take Blunt, he’s not very sharp.

  18. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @Stormy Dragon:

    It’s more a case of assuming that every politician at their core would rather be important, and debases themselves into whatever it takes to remain important.

    Couldn’t agree more.

  19. Rick Almeida Avatar
    Rick Almeida

    @john personna:

    And of course I’d be less worried about her being pulled into Republican party votes.

    It is really difficult to understate the importance of this.

    Senators cast hundreds of procedural votes each Congress that can have significant impact, and Representatives cast even more. These votes are almost all party-line votes, and because it’s not at all sexy to report on a vote on instructions for a motion to recommit an amendment , nobody ever notices.

  20. neil hudelson Avatar
    neil hudelson

    If warren is at 3.5, I would assess her leading actually larger. Undecideds break for the challenger. The percentage of break depends on the type of election–city elections the break will be 3:1 or 4:1. Congressional it’s around 1.5:1 (with the caveat that every race is of course unique). Having only done media consulting on senate campaigns–never field or polling work–I’m not sure what the average would be in a Senate race. I’m guessing it is also around 1.5:1.

    Brown is in trouble right jowls (nut there are still many weeks to go, of course)

  21. neil hudelson Avatar
    neil hudelson

    @neil hudelson:

    Right jowls? One of the funnier autocorrects I’ve seen.

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