FURTHER UPDATE: PPP’s details are out. They tweeted the wrong topline earlier: it’s Warren up 50-44 (not 51-45). Still a 6 point edge. The poll was taken Oct 9-11, so after Obama’s awful debate performance, and also after the first two senatorial debates; apparently some respondents may also have seen last night’s debate, though it’s unclear how many. The big news is this:
The big change over the last month is that Brown’s image is finally starting to take a hit. His approval rating is now a +7 spread at 49/42, down a net 14 points from mid-September when he was at 55/34. There’s an increasing sense that he’s been more a partisan voice for the national Republican Party (45%) than an independent voice for Massachusetts (44%). That’s a 10 point shift from our last poll when voters thought 49/40 that he’d been more of an independent voice.
The biggest thing that continues to make it very hard for Brown to win this race is that 52% of voters in the state want Democrats to have control of the US Senate to 35% who want the Republicans in control. Warren is now winning the Democratic vote 82/13, erasing most of the crossover support that Brown had earlier in the year.
Personally, I think that Brown’s image is suffering at least as much because of his own decision to sling mud rather than talk about real issues, as opposed to Warren’s advertising. It’s not very “senatorial” to impugn your opponent’s family and make sh!t up about work she did many years ago. But that’s just a gut sense.
UPDATE: PPP has just tweeted their topline: “Elizabeth Warren leads Scott Brown 51-45 in our new Massachusetts poll.”
They haven’t released numbers yet, but Public Policy Polling just posted this on Twitter:
Our new Massachusetts poll finds both Obama’s smallest lead all year, and Warren’s biggest lead ever
Very interesting. Obama’s shrinking lead here would be consistent with what’s been seen across the country in light of the Debacle in Denver. It would be encouraging indeed to see that Warren is pulling ahead even despite the narrowing presidential race. And that news would be especially welcome in light of the WBUR/MassINC poll that had Brown (somewhat implausibly, I think) with a rather sudden 4-point lead after trailing by 4-5 points in most other recent polls.
David Bernstein has moved this race from “tossup” to “lean D,” somewhat to his surprise. I’d say that’s accurate, particularly coming on the heels of last night’s very strong debate performance by Elizabeth Warren (even the Brown-sympathetic Garrett Quinn opined that “their exchange on the issues of the day for women stole the show in Springfield,” and on that issue, “Elizabeth Warren shined and Senator Scott Brown stumbled”). She seems to be really hitting her stride as a candidate at exactly the right time.
Meanwhile, Scott Brown’s campaign looks increasingly desperate. It seems to have decided that the only way it can win is via dishonest attack ads rather than talking about issues – which, interestingly, is precisely the strategy that Brown so effectively decried when Martha Coakley tried it against him. It is almost inevitably the sign of a campaign that thinks it’s losing.
I’ll update when PPP releases its numbers later today.
oceandreams says
are breaking both for Elizabeth Warren and Mitt Romney.
David says
I suspect there are precious few of those. So what could the numbers mean? I wonder whether (a) some independents are now more pro-Romney in light of the debate, and (b) some Dems and independents who were potential Obama/Brown ticket-splitters are now thinking that Romney could actually become president, and thus thinking that maybe voting Brown isn’t such a great idea after all because Republican President + Republican Senate = disaster. Too complicated? Maybe we’ll know more when the full poll is released.
fenway49 says
Even with these weaker numbers, I’d bet Obama still out-polling Warren in MA.
I’d guess undecided and soft Obama people who planned to vote Brown anyway might be leaning Romney too, at least for now. But undecided Senate voters committed to Obama are breaking toward Warren. Some Obama/Brown voters might be switching to Warren too, but I’m not convinced it’s the specter of a President Romney swaying them as much as realizing Scott Brown’s not who they thought he was.
In all the polls, however, there were some small number of Romney-Warren voters. These are either people who really do take each race separately and go with a gut feeling about the person, and/or they really dislike Obama even though they might support his policies. But thus far they’ve been a miniscule segment and I’d expect the crosstabs on this poll to show that as well.
marc-davidson says
for the very low information voters who comprise the ranks of the undecided. These people are more likely to be swayed by the color of Elizabeth Warren’s dress than by the strength of her positions let alone by any calculus of congressional majorities.
rickterp says
We’ll have to see the internals, but to have Warren and Romney both gaining doesn’t require the same people to shift into both the Warren and Romney columns. More likely, we’re seeing a complex shift of people into and out of the undecided column. What could be happening is a bunch of people who were leaning Obama shifted to undecided, a different bunch of people who were undecided shifted to lean Romney, another bunch shifted from leaning Brown to undecided, and a fourth bunch shifted from undecided to lean Warren. It’s possible that there are some individuals shifting simultaneously from lean Obama and undecided on Senate to undecided for President and lean Warren (as well as some doing the corresponding Republican shift), but it’s probably unlikely (and not really necessary) that many shifted from Obama-Brown to Romney-Warren.
rickterp says
I wondered at the time whether the WBUR/MassINC (taken over Columbus Day weekend) might not have gotten a representative sample of voters. If another poll shows the same thing as the PPP one, we’ll really know for sure that the WBUR/MassINC poll was an outlier.
lynne says
agreed…I was hoping to find the MassINC poll standing on its own. I suspect the margin of win here might tighten a lot, but by and large, I didn’t think the race would shift so dramatically just on the President’s performance.
WhiskeyRebellion says
it can’t possibly reflect Warren’s strong debate last night (it’s too soon). Once the debate outcome sinks in, I would expect a further Warren boost.
It still boggles the mind that so many MA voters still side with Brown, an obvious Wall $treet puppet. I wonder if those people think teevee ads are sufficient research to become an informed voter.
Trickle up says
Even “smart” people.
And most (even “smart”) do not appreciate the extent to which their gut can be manipulated.
lynne says
It’s “smaht” around here.
WhiskeyRebellion says
those people aren’t looking so ‘smart’ in the end. 😉
oceandreams says
From the release:
They also note that 57% of Mass. voters have a favorable view of college professors in general although only one-third of Republicans do….
fenway49 says
which are here. More of the same trends we’ve been seeing.
A huge gender gap.
Women support Warren 58-36, men support Brown 50-41. Obama up only 3 among these men, up 24 among the women surveyed. I would have to think last night only helped among women.
The men surveyed view Brown favorably 58-35, and are slightly more likely to view Obama unfavorably (48-51) and Romney favorably (49-47). 49% view Warren as “too liberal” and 54% view the Dems generally as “too liberal.” They’d actually prefer GOP control of the Senate (by a pretty wide 48-40) and favor Brown over John Kerry (51-40). Women want the Dems to control the Senate by 56-31 and favor Kerry over Brown 49-40.
Independents polled lean conservative
The self-declared independents are quite conservative. They view Obama unfavorably (40-58) and Romney favorably (56-39). They plan to vote for Romney (53-40) and view Brown very favorably (63-29). They do not view Warren favorably (32-60). Not surprisingly, they plan to vote for Brown (57-35). They also disapprove of Gov. Patrick (34-49) and Sen. Kerry (37-46). They approve of Romney’s term as governor (53-29).
48% of them do think the national GOP is too conservative, but that’s compared to 62% who think the national Democratic Party is too liberal. They favor Brown over Kerry (59-29) and GOP control of the Senate (44-38).
All this makes the independents sampled seem more conservative than usual to me. The poll did have a higher-than-normal Democratic sample, though it seems to be self-identified rather than registered Democrats, which explains part of the bump.
But it also was heavy on Brown’s strongest age group, 46-65 (a full 42% of respondents) and very low on voters 18-29, a big group for Warren (only 12% of the sample). The youngest age group had the highest number of undecideds. If they vote like their age cohort they will break for Warren late.
lynne says
did they mean not the people who are unenrolled but Dem-leaning? Like, if you polled my friend, she’d say she’s unenrolled but she votes for Dems.
That could be why it seems conservative – this is “self-ID’ed” indys not by definition of voter enrollment…there are a LOT of Dem-leaning indys in the state.
oceandreams says
“If you are a Democrat, press 1. If a Republican, press 2. If you are an independent or identify with another party, press 3.” Last automated poll I got on this asked if “you consider yourself” a Democrat or Republican, which is a different an interesting way to phrase it. Some people may not want to register with a party so they’re free to vote in either primary, even if they overwhelming vote one consider themselves largely in tune with one party’s philosophy.
fenway49 says
Dem-leaning independents pressed 1 for Democrat, and those who pressed 3 for independent were skewed conservative.
WhiskeyRebellion says
Repub or Independent?
fenway49 says
but I think independent is the preference for many
oceandreams says
In their mid-September poll, PPP said this race had “one of the most monumental gender gaps we’ve seen in any contest this year, with Warren up 56-36 with women but down 55-39 with men.” If the gender breakdowns are statistically significant, that would mean she went from a 16-point gap to a 9-point gap among men — still high, but at least single digits.
Her margin among women rose 2 points since mid-September; margin among men went up 7 points. I expect her debate performance last night wil help solidify her support and sway some undecideds..
lynne says
how Brown is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. If he’d have tried to play on her turf (on issues about the middle class, jobs, women’s issues, etc) he would be losing. But “going for broke” on bankrupt attacks on her character is killing him too.
Not that I feel all that much pity after what he has done.
Ryan says
because of his crappy record.
That said, I think if he tried to have been the affable guy people saw in commercials, he would have had a much better shot of winning. All this shameless negativity has killed his brand.
dracutfire says
Here in Dracut the misleading attacks on Warren, Obama still have traction. I guess people here don’t have a favorable view of professors as the rest of MA. http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2012/10/obamaphone/
lynne says
let’s be clear…it’s DRACUT. No offense, but you’re rather red with a side of red up there. LOL
dracutfire says
lol. well if you folks in Lowell (Pawtucketville) come to Dracut so much to play in the parks and train in the baseball facilities here that are contaminated with toxic waste, you should also be coming up here to talk some sense into the Dracut voters!
Mark L. Bail says
strategists have still not figured out how to bridge the gap between Republican voters and the huge Democratic majority. They couldn’t do it with Baker and now they’re struggling with Brown, who is a much better candidate.
They’ve fluffed up Scott as much as they can with “This is Scott Brown from the road,” but when they have to close the gap, a gap I think their internal polling revealed a while ago, they go on the negative and undo their other work.
We still have a way to go and a lot can still happen, but at the end of the day, I was, am, and expect to be proud that I support Elizabeth Warren.
methuenprogressive says
Just sayin’.
Don’t think it’s in the bag.
stomv says
it was Christmas Day. Nobody was talking about the race, reporting on the race, paying attention to the race, and lots of volunteers weren’t involved.
The only things in a bag were Santa’s presents.
mski011 says
To win, the GOP needs two things. 1) A likeable candidate who can connect (or appear to), which admittedly Scott Brown was before he tried to use nativism as a campaign tactic; 2) Lower turnout. In a presidential year, absent an abysmal candidate for the Dems, the turnout in the cities is too much. This is not to say Brown could not win in such an environment. God knows that the Senators from Maine have endured all these years. But it is very different, especially since his tenure has been and continues to be light on anything substantive. I can’t say, but I think Snowe & Collins always had a reputation of being deep. Brown, I don’t think has.