The first poll taken since Elizabeth Warren officially entered the race shows her actually ahead of Scott Brown in a head-to-head matchup (46-44); the other Democratic candidates still trail far behind. Brown’s popularity in the state has been nosediving of late, while Warren’s own name recognition and favorability ratings have shot up after what the pollster, Public Policy Polling (which is a Democratic pollster not affiliated with any candidate and which has gotten very high ratings from Nate Silver and other analysts) called “an incredibly successful launch to her Senate campaign.”
Here is the word on Brown, which is really the poll’s biggest news. Head-to-head numbers will fluctuate for months, but fav/unfav on Brown is key right now.
Once one of the most popular senators in the country, a Republican in a blue state, it would have taken a nosedive in public favor for Brown to be beaten. And that is exactly what has happened. Early last December, when PPP first looked at the race, 53% approved and only 29% disapproved of his job performance. That fell to 48-36 in June. Only three months later, he sits at 44-45, moving him in only nine months from the 16th to the 61st most popular of 87 senators on which PPP has polled. Brown has only become more popular with the GOP, but they are only 15% of voters. The 45% independent plurality gives him only a 49-39 mark, versus 61-25 in December. And the 40% who are Democrats have moved from 35-41 to 31-52 to 25-65, still pretty good for cross-aisle appeal, but clearly on the wrong trajectory.
Now, as for the Democrats:
[Elizabeth] Warren’s gone from 38% name recognition to 62% over the last three months and she’s made a good first impression on pretty much everyone who’s developed an opinion about her during that period of time. What was a 21/17 favorability rating in June is now 40/22 – in other words she’s increased the voters with a positive opinion of her by 19% while her negatives have risen only 5%…. Despite his difficulties with Warren, Brown does continues to hold a wide advantage over the rest of the Democratic field. He’s up 15 points on Alan Khazei at 48-33, 15 on Setti Warren as well at 47-32, 18 on Bob Massie at 49-31, and 19 on Tom Conroy at 50-31. The non-Elizabeth Warren Democratic contenders have only 19-36% name recognition so they could conceivably become more competitive if one of them were to win the nomination and become better known – but primary numbers we’ll release later this week show that the contest for the Democratic nod might be over before it’s even really started.
The details (PDF) are here; dig through them and see what else you can find!
and approval ratings at this point is a better measure.
But a reminder, PPP had Brown 51, Coakley 46 with a few undecideds, election results were Brown 52, Coakley 47. So they are pretty much on the money, it’s not Rasmussen, it’s real.
As I recall, Warren had made herself unelectable by such major gaffs as hiring the wrong law firm (or something), failing to kiss the rings of pundits, and not declaring on her candidacy on other peoples’ timetables.
More proof, if you ever needed it, that voters don’t care about that crap.
players cost her dear! Unofficial BMG results show she may have lost the support of several of her opponents. The game changer for EB3 is her delaying plastic surgery.
A growing number of independent thinking voters preferring substance over hype has the political world stymied?
It’s almost like she’s in — What’s the word? — command.
I guess no one else saw the original headline.
…I’ve been stunned by the reaction. I’m not on the campaign or involved or even committed to any candidate yet in this race, but everyone I talk to is excited about Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy. It’s hard not to see what’s driving this surge in the polls.
This is why the Khazei/Brown claim of it being an insider-only campaign is so ridiculous. I too am put off at the fact that this campaign was created and pushed hard initially by Gus Cecil at the DSCC, and not from a genuine movement here. Right now it’s my only real caveat. The grassroots in this state is getting excited, motivated, and are moving fast, and it has traveled well outside the beltway.
This is a train right now, and not like anything I think we’ve ever really seen. I’m actually pretty amazed.
Perhaps the insider v outsider tack doesn’t make sense considering in many ways the outsiders are now the insiders. Think about it. Before 2004 and Howard Dean most candidates had to do a combination of kissing the local brass rings, getting high profile endorsements, and raising a ton of corporate dollars to be competitive. Since Dean they can now go directly to their own supporters and raise huge amounts of cash online. Before 2006 the state party kept nominating the bland moderate next in line candidate to get slaughtered by maverick seeming moderate Republicans. Since 2006 we have nominated maverick progressive candidates like DP and kicked a ton of electoral ass in this state, even averting the last red tide of 2010. Maybe they finally realized that backing the candidate the voters actually want early is the best way to please them. I think this candidate will generate excitement, will re-energize a depressed local grassroots, and frankly her presence on the ballot will help Obama not the other way around.
Sen. Patty Murray won a house seat as a single mom due to her awesome grassroots operation and she is now the DSCC Chairman, and our own grassroots bred Jim Walsh is now our state chairman. So the ‘insiders’ and ‘powers that be’ are really outsiders that never strayed from their grassroots.
Tommy Menino’s hostility 🙂
so that she doesn’t have to waste time on them.
the cartoon Deputy Dawg,
“Don’t go away mad, muskrat, just go away.”
By all means, let’s have a primary. Young Goodman Brown is the one who needs to go away.
(Hawthorne allusion with Hester Prynne in mind).
It’s clearly a boost for Warren, but could the poll also reveal potential for other candidates? The results for Conroy or Massie probably do not reveal very much since they still have low name recognition and have yet to receve the same kind of media coverage.
as I said in the post, the biggest news in this poll is the “nosedive” (to quote the pollster) that Scott Brown’s favorable/unfavorable ratings have taken. That will absolutely redound to the benefit of whoever wins the Democratic primary.