Warren, Romney up big in Massachusetts

After only a few days in the race Elizabeth Warren's already built a 46 point lead in the Massachusetts Democratic Senate primary.  She's at 55% to 9% for Alan Khazei, 7% for Tom Conroy, 2% each for Marisa DeFranco and Bob Massie, and 1% each for Herb Robinson and Setti Warren.

What's most notable about Warren's huge early advantage is that it's coming from across the ideological spectrum of the Democratic electorate.  She does have her greatest strength with voters describing themselves as 'very liberal'- a 55 point lead over Khazei at 65-10- or 'somewhat liberal'- a 53 point advantage over Khazei at 62-9.  But she's got a huge advantage with moderates- 36 points over Conroy at 46-10- and with those primary voters describing themselves as 'somewhat conservative'- 22 points over Khazei at 40-18- as well.  Her support is not just a liberal phenomenon.

Although Warren looks like the overwhelming front runner regardless, it is important to note that this poll was taken at a time when she'd been receiving a lot of very good press while virtually no attention was given to her opponents.  As a result she has 69% name recognition with Democratic primary voters compared to only 42% for Khazei, 30% for Setti Warren, 22% for Massie, and 19% for Conroy.  It's conceivable that as the other candidates become better known they'll build support and cut into her lead some.  But it will very hard for them to catch up from this sort of margin.

Warren's rise means Scott Brown has a lot to worry about for the general election but he should be home free as far as the primary goes.  Only 21% of Republican voters say they'd support a more conservative alternative in the primary compared to 70% who say they're committed to Brown as their nominee.  Those numbers are an improvement for Brown from June when he led a generic primary opponent 65-25.  Of course that's not necessarily good news for Brown- the more Republicans like him, the less Democrats and Democratic leaning independents do and ultimately his prospects for a full term in office are going to depend on their support.

Mitt Romney continues to dominate the Republican Presidential race in his home state.  He's at 50% to 14% for Rick Perry with everyone else in single digits- Michele Bachmann at 7%, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 3%, and Gary Johnson and Rich Santorum each at 1%.  Even in Massachusetts though these numbers are symbolic of the decline in support Romney's seen since Perry's entry into the race- when we polled the state in June Romney was at 56%.

Perry's favorability in Massachusetts is only a 47/38 spread and with moderates his numbers are under water at 33/48.  That's another piece of data pointing to his serious electability issues- folks on the right who want Perry as their nominee will still vote for Romney if he ends up with it.  Folks in the middle who want Romney as their nominee may very well end up in the Obama camp if Perry's successful.

Full results here

Comments

[msmii]

Raise taxes or increase the number of tax payers actually working and paying taxes? hmmmm ...
The cost of oil is currently around $85.92 per barrel, $1.56 per gallon. The rule of thumb has it that we should be paying about $2.56 per gallon at the pump. Why are we paying as if the cost per barrel were $143 not the $85.92 it is today?

With the current price of $85.92 per barrel, the actual cost of the oil is $58.42. The cost of refining that is $11.17. The taxes, give to Caesar what is Caesars’, comes out to be $10.31. The marketing and distribution portion of this comes to $6.01 per barrel.

The FTC feels that Price Gouging is afoot, and so do I.
http://msmignoresit.blogspot.com/2011/09/price-of-oil-today.html

[Obama 2012]

I saw in another poll that Romney has a similarly huge lead in New Hampshire. The way things are looking now Romney is going to win these northeast states by a large margin but Perry will do the same down south. This looks like it could be headed to a long drawn out Obama/Clinton 2008 type battle.

At this point I'm betting Perry ends up with the nomination, but as an Obama supporter that may just be wishful thinking.

Romney's not a great candidate - but he's clearly far better than Perry.

[Pamela]

What kind of support does Ron Paul have in the state? And why, when he clearly has a lot of national support, are polls like this one and the media completely ignoring him? I'm a Democrat and not really a supporter of Paul, but it's glaringly obvious that there is a concerted effort to marginalize him.

[Dustin Ingalls]

We obviously did include him, since he was explicitly mentioned above. We've always included him in the primary in every state we poll anyway.

[realnrh]

Ron Paul doesn't get media mention because he's not a meaningful influence on the future of the race. He has his small but determined base of supporters who will vote for him, but he's never had any success expanding beyond his mini-cult. He likely won't drop out, so his supporters won't be distributed out, but he won't increase his share of the vote either. He can lock up somewhere between three to twelve percent of the Republican primary electorate as long as he wants, but it doesn't give him any significant number of delegates or chance of overall victory. As long as he's the kooky guy who wants to make gold the national currency, opposes any global engagement for any reason, and who opposes the Civil Rights Act, among others, he's not going anywhere.