Warren holds small lead in MA-Senate race

PPP's newest Massachusetts poll finds Elizabeth Warren leading Scott Brown 46-41.

Brown is not proving to be an overwhelmingly popular Senator. 45% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 42% who disapprove. That's actually up a little bit from a 44/45 spread on our last poll in September. Republicans love him, giving him an 80/7 approval spread. But his appeal to Democrats and independents is not what it once was. At the end of his first year in office Brown was nearly running even with Democrats, with 35% approving of him to 41% who disapproved. Now he's at 23/63 across party lines. And although he remains popular with independents at 53/34, it's not the 61/25 rating he enjoyed with them at the end of 2010.

In the head to head with Warren, Brown has the GOP base completely locked up 89-3. And the 17% of Democrats he's winning is comparable to the 19% we found him getting against Martha Coakley in 2010. But he's only up 48-36 with independents, a far cry from his 64-32 advantage with them against Coakley, and that's the main reason he trails by this narrow margin.

Warren is reclaiming the middle from Brown. We find her up 42-40 with moderate voters, a group that we found Brown leading Coakley 55-41 with. She's also inspiring a lot of enthusiasm from young people. 56% rate her favorably to 27% with an unfavorable view, and she leads Brown 56-29 with them.

Warren's name recognition is up to 79%, from 62% when we last polled the state in September. Her negatives are actually rising faster than her favorability number. She's gone from a a 40/22 spread to 46/33. Democrats (66/15) are pretty enthusiastic about her but she's not showing much crossover appeal, registering at 13/69 with Republicans. Independents are pretty evenly divided with 39% rating her favorably and 38% unfavorably.

Voters are more comfortable with Warren ideologically than they are with Brown. 51% say that her views are 'about right,' compared to 44% for the incumbent. She's probably also benefiting from the fact that 54% of Massachusetts voters think the Republican Party is too conservative, compared to only 41% who think the Democratic Party is too liberal. Although only 35% of voters think Brown himself is too conservative, the bad image of his national party has to be rubbing off on him at least some.

One other note: Republicans love to label Warren as a Harvard professor, seemingly thinking voters perceive that as a negative. We polled Harvard's image on this poll and 57% of Massachusetts voters see it favorably to 19% with an unfavorable opinion. Republicans are split on it (37/38), but Democrats (72/9) and independents (50/22) both see it quite positively. Not sure that's an effective strategy...

Full results here

Comments

[Chris Ar]

Translation: Brown is still up by 5.

[Steve]

If you bias the sample you can get any result you want. If you take 1/3 Democrat; 1/3 Republican and 1/4 Independent you'll get these results:

Brown (R) 89 x.333 = 29.6%
Warren (R) 3 x .333 = 1.0%

Brown (I) 48 x .333 = 16.0%
Warren (I) 36 x .333 = 12.0%

Brown (D) = 17 x .333 = 5.6%
Warren (D) = 72 x .333 = 24.0%

Total Brown = 29.6 + 16.0 + 5.6 = 51.2%
Total Warren = 1.0 + 12.0 + 24.0 = 37.0%

It's all about the sample and the Left loves to play these sampling games...

Raleigh, N.C. – Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren leads Republican Scott Brown
by 5 points, 46-41, a new poll from Public Policy Polling finds. Warren has increased her
lead from 46-44 the last time PPP polled Massachusettes in September 2011. Scott
Brown still enjoys almost unanimous support from Republicans, winning their share of
the vote 89-3. Brown even takes a fair share of Democratic voters, taking 17% of them
to Warren’s 72%, and he also wins independent voters by 12 points, 48-36. The
difference is that in his 2010 victory Brown won independent voters by 32 points.

[Josh]

Massachusetts has equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans?

[Jason Paul]

That is hilarious. On what planet is Mass 1/3D and 1/3R

[neil]

And as we all know, Massachusetts has an equal number of Republicans and Democrats.

[RichardC]

Steve, do you really believe that there will be an equal number of Republican and Democratic voters in MASSACHUSETTS? Come on, at least try with your trolling.

[Chris A.]

Steve - There's just one problem with that. It's Massachusettes where Democrats considerably overwhelm Republicans. By your logic, you're predicting that Massachusettes will be close between Obama and Romney in the fall. It won't be.

Here's the key question to ask yourself. Ignore samples for now. How many Obama voters will also vote for Brown? If it's low or none, then Warren will likely win based purely on the amount of Dems/GOP/Indies in MA. If it's high? Then Brown will have a shot.

[Alexjon]

Sample bias reflects reality and not partisan fantasy. It looks at voter participation and identity, not some contrived knee-jerk vision of what you personally feel a locale's partisan split is.

[nv]

Uh, Steve: of course it's all about sample — it's a poll... — but if that's your guess as to the Party ID's in MA electorate in presidential year, well, I can't help you.

Typical numbers in actual MA statewide elections are closer to 50% D, 25% R, and 25% I, which makes sense when you realize Obama won MA 61-36 (i.e., he took Dems and about half of Independents).

[DCCyclone]

I'm so sorry you guys have to endure dunces like the two above in comments, but I hope you at least get humor out of them.

[NROCruiseDir]

Well, Steve..we Lefties do like to play sampling games....just like you Righties do. But fit this factoid into your sampling analysis.

2008 Presidential results-

Democrats 1.9MM (62% of vote)
Republicans 1.1MM (36% of vote)

With your Republican sponsored war on woman and no jobs economic plan, think you're going to do better this cycle? LMAO

[John E.]

What is the registration % breakdown in MA? Shouldn't Dems be sampled more based on voting patterns?

[Amy]

I didn't actually look at his sample, but looking at MA voter registration, 11.34% of registered voters choose to affiliate with the Republican party. Likely, active voters pushes that up to about 14% of the voting population. I cannot imagine why PPP should sample Republicans any more than 15% of the electorate, at most.

[SED]

I live in MA and the registration break down is 52% indie, 33% Dem, 12% GOP, and 3% Green.

[BobM]

Ah liberals.... they are born into it and only the smart ones grow up to become Conservatives.

Maybe the split is 62% to 36% but half the Democrats I know won't vote for that phony 1%'r Warren.

[George]

Are you going to poll Louisiana primary on thursday and friday?

[jerold duquette]

Actual voter reg in MA is roughly 35%Dems, 14%Rep, and 51% Unenrolled voters.

[Obama 2012]

Richarddc - I'm afraid this guy isn't "trolling" ... he's just dumb. I know it's hard to tell the difference with these folks...

[valar84]

According to Wikipedia*, Massachusetts is 37% registered Democrats and 11% registered Republicans. In 2008, in the CNN exit polls**, the voter ID was split 43% Democratic, 17% Republican and 40% Independents, likely because Republicans are likelier to vote than Democrats, who are still much likelier to voter than Independents.

Using the registration ratios, you get 45,7% Warren and 41,0% Brown. Using the ratios of the 2008 election yields 45,6% Warren and 41,6% Brown. So exactly what they report.

If you want to find bias, keep searching, Steve.

*source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states
**source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#MAP00p1

[Joe Sixpack]

Demoralized dems won't be out at the polls in Nov.