Public Policy Polling is out with the latest Senate poll, and it shows – surprise! – that the race is a tie. It also shows, consistently with several previous polls, that Cherokee-gate has had almost no effect on the race.
The horserace numbers are 46-46. Warren has polled at 46% in each of PPP’s last three polls. Brown has actually improved his showing slightly, from 41% in September to 46% now. Both candidates are in positive fav/unfav territory, Brown (51/38) slightly moreso than Warren (47/38). As PPP observes, “Warren was at 46/33 in March so her negatives have climbed a little bit since then, but it could be a lot worse given the press coverage she’s received since that time.”
Brown is polling quite well with independents – PPP has him at 57-33, which is in the ballpark of what he needs to win, though probably not quite enough (I’d say he needs to win indies by 30 points). PPP’s bottom line, I think, is exactly right:
This race is ultimately going to be decided by Obama independents. The undecideds for Senate are planning to vote for Obama over Mitt Romney by a 60/13 margin. 62% of them are independents to 31% who are Democrats and just 7% who are Republicans. On paper it seems like Warren has a lot more room to grow. But those who haven’t made up their minds yet like both candidates. Brown has a 43/19 approval rating with them and Warren’s favorability is 40/15. Unlike in the Presidential race where swing voters are trying to decide who they think is the lesser of two evils, in this contest voters are trying to choose between two candidates who they see pretty favorably. There are already a lot of Obama/Brown voters and it’s quite possible there will be more of them.
The Massachusetts Senate contest has been tight ever since Elizabeth Warren announced she was getting into the field, and there’s not much reason to think that’s going to change any time soon.
I continue to think that the People’s Pledge is a huge deal in this race, and a huge boon to Elizabeth Warren, who by now would have been deluged by millions of dollars worth of Karl Rove attacks if it weren’t for that agreement. At some point, I wonder whether Team Brown will decide that it’s worth paying the 50% to charity in order to have those ads running; after all, they’d effectively be getting a discount on the cost of advertising for which they otherwise would have to pay full price. But, of course, Brown would also at that point be seen as reneging on a deal that he himself called for when the going got tough. Interesting times ahead.
Discuss
40 Comments . Leave a comment below.On election day, polls indicate an Obama win over Mitt. Will that likely help Warren with those on the fence? Or will the unenrolled voters break for Brown to check Obama’s mandate.
If it looks like Mitt is going to win, do voters here break for Warren to check his presidency, or say lets vote Brown so we have a Rep in the delegation?
I think this is Warren’s race to lose.
How do you think that will sit with independents. Just curious, because I know you also think it is a “dump” in comparison particularly with Yankee Stadium.
The people who want to save Fenway Dump are not Brown’s target audience. They usually drive a boxy Volvo from the 80′s with 300K miles with a bumper sticker that says “Stop Seabrook” or “Dukakis/Bentsen 88″.
Seriously, you should experience Yankeem Stadium. Plenty of room, food is nice good, bathrooms are up to code, in and out of the stadium, has a museum and baseballs signed by former Yankee players, including Catfish Hunter, Loius Tiant, Ruth, etc. try it and you wii want to take a wrecking ball to Fenway, as we did to the old Boston Garden.
…but what this tells me is that the President should swing through MA to campaign for Warren. Maybe he can justify it by stopping by on his way to NH, which is a presidential swing state.
As someone who votes based on how the person will represent us rather than whether I “like” the person, it boggles my mind that people can be undecided between Brown and Warren. Their voting records would be such stark contrasts that certainly people can figure out which one they like better.
EW doesn’t have a voting record… she has never been a US Senator, or a Congresswomen, a State Senator, State Rep, dog catcher… nothing. NO VOTING RECORD TO COMPARE!!!!
“voting records would be ”
He has a record of voting. She has a well and detailed documented record of advocacy. Both can be extrapolated to predict what ‘would be’. You’re smart enough to see that and have read that correctly.
Will the media make the same amount of noise over Brown’s “secret meetings with Kings and Queens” as they did over Warren believing what her parents told her about her heritage?
Not a chance.
The Boston Globe and Boston Herald are acutely aware of the significant Boston presence of the Koch family, and of the family’s affinity for Scott Brown. Don’t look for any Woodward & Berstein-style investigative journalism of Scott Brown in this town.
It would be interesting.
We should not kid ourselves about the importance and influence of the new Koch Institute at MIT. The Koch family has deep roots in Massachusetts. We know that they funded Scott Brown in 2010, and I think it’s safe to assume they’ll be funding the Romney campaign (headquartered in Boston) one way or another.
The Koch family owns Georgia-Pacific, which in turn has a “Dixie-branded cutlery facility” in Leominster that employs 200 and “in 2010, … generated approximately $9 million in gross employee wages and benefits”. I also found Koch Membrane Systems, in Wilmington.
Sadly, it is non-trivial to track corporate ownership even using Google.
If not, why should the papers care about their Boston presence and affinity for Scott Brown?
The Koch family has significant leverage over advertising revenue that Boston papers depend on.
If this change was concerning EW, what would the comments be? Good! Great! Just wondering…
This is going to be a close one but I have not lost hope that Scott pulls it off.
Rockefeller needs constant reminding that this is a progressive board so he should lower his expectations.
I know EW does not have a voting record – yet. Note that I said their voting records WOULD BE different, not that they ARE; I did that intentionally. Point is on all the big votes it is pretty safe to assume the Warren would vote the opposite of how Brown has. In other words, if you like Brown’s record, vote for him; it’s a much better reason for voting for him because you like his truck or his barn coat. If you don’t like Brown’s record, vote for Warren because hers will most certainly be more to your liking.
Has Obama voted the way you thought he would vote? Gitmo, DOMA, Afghanistan…
He stopped defending DOMA in court, and he’s extricating us from Afghanistan after having sent more troops in – which is precisely what he said he would do while campaigning. Got anything else?
Meaning, I believe 1500 US soldiers killed in Afghanistan since Obama took office. In the end, was it all worth it?
n/t
But I do have relatives in the military. So with that in mind, no, it was not worth the lost lives of American soldiers, and the thousands wounded. Both wars were stupid, yet one continues.
So you said no thanks, meaning you are afraid to answer the question?
just an entry in the title, then no text in the comment.
U included.
I have always used n/t as “no text” not “no thanks”, others have as well.
R u a politician or something? Hey, if you thinks it’s worth it, sign your kids up at the recruiting station.
He could close Gitmo if he wanted to, or at least transfer all of the prisoners there to Afghanistan or somewhere else, and leave it empty. Obama has plenty of power, as he recently demonstrated in the area of immigration, for example.
Bob doesn’t drink the Kool Aid like johnt001 and Tommy Boy.
…just gives us GITMO with a different name – and Congress did force his hand, his immigration order has to do with allocating resources, not with relocating prisoners. I stand by my comment.
President Obama hasn’t voted on any of the things you mention. President’s don’t vote, only Congress can vote.
I am VERY confident that the votes of Senator Elizabeth Warren will be far more supportive of President Obama’s agenda than the votes of Senator Scott Brown were and will be.
Sell their votes like the Cornhusker Kickback or Louisiane Purchase as those two sold their votes in order to pass Obamacare. That the type she will be?
Really, you think Warren will turn around and replace Brown as Wall Street’s favorite Senator once she’s in? As for the President, the answer on balance is yes, certainly with regard to examples you cited. There have been disappointments, much forced on him by Congress, but it’s not as if I wish McCain were President instead. If we can’t have some sense about how our electeds will act once in office then what’s the point?
and he is in much better physical condition. So I think that he was a better chance of finishing strong.
Let’s see how Warren’s holding up in October. At times now she’s already looking a little frayed around the edges and these are the kinds of things those last undecideds might care about.
By the way last week I did talk to a number of people who said they were undecided. They were the “pox on both parties” types so no telling where they will go.
Scott Brown is a “career politician”, being such benefits him.
then I suppose you are correct.
If you think people should start at the top without any experience, then you should be okay with Warren.
Four months to go.
so I’ll save that for future use. Thanks for the clarification.
n/t
and bad for Brown.
Or so one would be led to believe reading this blog.
all the polls have shown the race to be basically tied, with Brown under 50%. That’s pretty good territory for a first-time challenger taking on an extremely well-funded incumbent who for a long time (though not any more) regularly polled as the most popular elected official in the state. Wouldn’t you say?
Though MP put the Warren positive spin in the analysis, and you added another point, though that stat still did not move this outside the margin of error.
I’m only saying that none of the polls have really shown anything to spin.
That Brown is not further ahead is good for Warren. Should we expect different? This is MA after all. Warren is very appealing from a media perspective and she gets people (even moderates) going much like Obama did four years ago.
It’s also not like Brown is a six year incumbent. Some percentage of the population only view him as an “oops”, the product of a Democratic slip-up.
Still, when you’re voting out an incumbent, you need to decide if they should be “fired” and like any job there could be a number of reasons.
I’m not sure I agree on the Pledge analysis above. The number of undecideds is very low. How much media do you need to throw at them to change their mind, especially as many people’s views are pretty solid. If you spent $5 million on ads that said Brown hates women, do you think anyone who favors him currently changes their vote? How many of the very few undecideds does it reach? What would Brown throw at Warren? They are getting to the point where they risk backlash if they get too mean.
Better to spend money on getting the vote out and making certain that “He’s for us/she’s for them” message reaches the ears of the last few “involved/clueless yet still vote” types
If Romney gets over 40% of the vote in MA, then Brown will win. Latest poll is Obama 55-39 over the Mittster.
Once Obama has it locked more people in MA might throw a vote Romney’s direction as a consolation.
Obama ahead definitely helps Brown as the American voter loves gridlock.
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