Warren, Brown in dead heat: UMass Lowell/Herald poll

[MADem]

Source: Boston Herald (A GOP leaning tabloid newspaper)

Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s meteoric ascent in Massachusetts politics has landed her in a virtual dead heat with Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, while two Democrats who passed on the race — Gov. Deval Patrick and former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II — could pose even bigger threats to the GOP incumbent, a new UMass-Lowell/Boston Herald poll shows.

Brown is ahead of Warren by a 41-38 percent margin in a general election trial heat, a statistical tie given the poll’s 3.8 percent margin of error. Warren, who announced her campaign just last month, faces her first crucial test Tuesday night in a Democratic debate sponsored by University of Massachusetts at Lowell and the Herald.

The Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate’s message of standing up for middle class voters appears to be a major reason why she has pulled even with Brown, according to the poll of 1,005 registered Massachusetts voters conducted Sept. 22-28.

...Warren, despite never having run for elective office, is already the clear front-runner in the six-person Democratic race, getting 36 percent of 636 potential primary voters, while the rest of the field doesn’t even crack 5 percent. More than 40 percent of Democratic voters are undecided or chose none of the above.

Read more: http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2011_1003poll_warren_on_par_with_brown_joe_k_deval_would_do_better

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This is outstanding news, grudgingly reported by a GOP leaning rag. She shouldn't rest on her laurels, and unless the field drops away, she will still have to deal with a debate or two in the primary season, but she is running STRONG with those of us who are paying attention.

[dkf]

1. I'm surprised Patrick does better. I thought he was in a bit of trouble in ma.

[MADem]

3. Naah, he's OK. MA is like a lot of states, we have somewhat of a "weak governor" system.

I'm not saying the Guvnah himself is weak, but the governor can't do an awful lot without the legislature, and they are pretty good at throwing their weight around.

Also, it is no secret that DP and BHO are friends, and the BHO campaign was a national-level carbon copy of the DP campaign in MA. The polling likely reflected that it doesn't hurt to have friends in high places.

Finally, and this is a bit of a third rail, but MA is not kind to women. I don't really understand it, you'd think, in New England fashion, we'd be a bit more like Maine when it comes to sending women to DC, but we aren't. It's a bit of a frustration to me, we're so forward-looking in some ways, and absolute putzes in others. Women in MA elections are scrutinized, brutally, and often picked apart unfairly. I think Martha Coakley's shellacking, and the tearing apart of Shannon O'Brien's gubernatorial candidacy might have helped in paving the way for EW, though. I'll acknowledge that both of those campaigns had issues, but there was a general piling on that happened with those two candidates that I do not think would have happened if they were males.

Anyway, it's looking good. Onward and upward!

[johnnyplankton]

4. Patrick's not in trouble

Unemployment is relatively low (7.6%).

[MADem]

5. I know. When I said "weak governor" I was talking about the relative authority

DP has in his leadership role. If you don't work with the legislature, not much gets done.

[No Elephants]

11. Does it matter? He's not running for anything, is he?

[cascadiance]

6. She's doing better in the primary polls... I suspect its name recognition still...

Those in the Democratic Party know pretty strongly who she is, which is likely why she's doing so well with the primary numbers, but I suspect that Republicans and independents don't know her as well as they might know other pols that have been in the mix more in past elections. I'm guessing that she'll gain ground over time the more she gets heard out there.

[No Elephants]

12. Name recognition is half the battle sometimes.

[Indykatie]

2. Thanks for Posting

This is a race I will follow closely from Indiana. It will be wonderful if we can reclaim this seat. From what I have seen Warren is an excellent candidate and will be an excellent campaigner.

[MADem]

9. I hope she'll be an excellent senator, too!

:hi:

[Firebrand Gary]

7. This is going to be a close election.

[Tarheel_Dem]

8. Good news.

:kick:

[FarLeftFist]

10. Wait until she starts talking to the people, she should take a landslide.

[No Elephants]

13. I hope they listen. Right now, many in Mass have no idea who she is.

God bless the low info general public (not).

[rasputin1952]

14. I agree the Herald is a RW rag, and that shows me how much...

EW is feared by the RW. She's the nightmare the GOP always fears, an intelligent woman.

I've never understood why R's are so terrified of intelligent women, maybe it's because the GOP is basically a bunch of intellectually questionable males?

In any case...the fear factor is a good thing as it brings more attention to EW's realistic approaches. With the economy in the tank and Brown incapable of doing even base line work in the Senate, EW shines like a beacon of light. She hasn't even begun actively campaigning yet, when that happens, all bets are off, she'll skin Brown.

To see her and Brown in a debate will be a keeper...:D

[karynnj]

15. The two Boston Herald articles on this study are predictably weird

I think they buried the lead on this study. What the poll shows is that Brown's support has really fallen dramatically since he was elected. Though they don't provide the numbers, they show him a dead heat with Martha Coakley and losing badly to Joe Kennedy and Deval Patrick.

Patrick leads Brown by a 43-36 percent margin and Kennedy holds an even bigger advantage, 45 to 37 percent, among a sample of 506 registered voters. Even Attorney General Martha Coakley, who lost to Brown last year, would be in a dead heat with the Republican incumbent.

All of these polls have large undecided - suggesting the poll did not try to "push" people to decide. It is also interesting that these numbers happened even with the media having treated Brown very favorably.

[MADem]

16. I don't think Lowell has bias, and I am guessing they ran the poll.

All the Herald could do is try to paper over the bad news....but there wasn't enough paper to go around!

The Nekkid Senator has been trying to walk a middle line in MA, so he satisfies no one, especially the red meat racists amongst us who hate immigrants who are "takin' their jerbs." I also think a lot of these same people found his revelations in his self-serving biography about getting molested at camp either unsettling, perhaps for personal reasons, or lacking a ring of truth (suggesting he was going for the "sympathy" factor). Whatever the facts of that situation, it didn't give him the boost he was looking for.

He also recently did a bullshit CODEL tour to the 'Stan, and wore his uni--he wasn't deployed, mind you, he was over there as a fact-finding Senator, but he had to toss the cammies on. Sick fuck. Total bullshitter. The guy makes my skin crawl.

[karynnj]

17. I don't think - and did not ,mean to imply that the poll was biased

I love your comments. It is interesting that some of the most blatant actions he has made - his biography and trip to Afghanistan seem to have actually backfired.

[MADem]

18. The guy's middle name should be Panderer!

He's such an empty suit! Say what one will about MA politicians, while most are sharp as a tack, even the stupid and crude ones usually have that light of cunning in their eye, or a bit of wit, a fast retort or...something! Nudeboy comes off as a programmed robot, and it is as if the guy who wrote the program and built the robot didn't allow for sufficient memory, or something!

When Scott Brown thinks, you can hear gears loudly and painfully grinding! When he speaks, he always gives me the impression of someone who studied REALLY REALLY hard, who memorized all the facts, but still is having trouble retrieving said facts from his thick skull. Kinda like Porgie the Wee Cowboy, when he was thinkin' REALLY hard, only without the fake TX accent!

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, that's for sure!