Brown leads by 5 in MA-Sen race

PPP's newest poll on the Massachusetts Senate race finds Scott Brown opening up a 5 point lead, 49-44. This is the first time Brown has led in one of our polls since June of 2011. Our last poll, in June of this year, found a tie and the two before that had modest leads for Elizabeth Warren.

Brown continues to do well because of his personal popularity and because voters see him as different from the Republican Party as a whole. 53% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 36% who disapprove. Incumbents with those kinds of approval numbers generally don't lose. Brown's approval has improved a net 14 points from March when he was at +3 (45/42). Warren's numbers are headed in the other direction. On that poll her favorability was 46/33 and now it's 46/43- her negatives have risen 10 points over the last five months while her positives have remained unchanged.

Massachusetts voters see the GOP as a whole as being extreme- 56% think it's too conservative to only 27% who consider it to be 'about right.' But they don't feel that way about Brown- just 30% think he's too conservative to 54% who believe he's 'about right' ideologically. 30% of voters who think Brown's too conservative is less than the 41% who think that Warren is too liberal. Additionally 49% regard Brown more as someone who has been 'an independent voice for Massachusetts' compared to 38% who feel he's been more a 'partisan voice for the national Republican Party.'

Brown has the lead on Warren thanks to a 58-32 advantage with independents, comparable to what he won against Martha Coakley in 2010. He has Republicans strongly unified around him (91-7) and he's pulling a pretty decent amount of Democratic support, 20%, with just 73% of her party's voters committed to Warren at this point.

Things are going well for Brown right now but there's still one major data point in this poll that could spell trouble for him down the line. 53% of voters would like Democrats to have control of the next Senate, compared to 36% who want the Republicans in charge. Brown is winning in spite of that because only 76% of people who want a Democratic majority are currently planning to vote for Warren. If Democrats in the final 11 weeks of the campaign are effective turning it into a referendum on which party they'd like to have control of the Senate for the next two years, Warren might be able to get the race headed back in her direction.

The race remains close but Scott Brown is proving to be pretty resilient despite his state's heavily Democratic electorate.

Full results here

Comments

[John Friedson]

At this point, most of the Commonwealth realizes that 'Lie-awatha' Warren is a phony who abused the system to get herself into and through school, for starters. Lord knows the voters here in MA are pretty stupid, and generally follow the Democratic party like sheep, but even we occasionally catch on.
Scott being a RINO doesn't hurt him here, either...

[Obama 2012]

Very disappointing. If Warren can't even win in Massachusetts that says a lot about how far right our country has drifted. Warren is one of the few politicians who speaks the real truth about what's going down... she should be up by 30 points. This is just sad.

Not that I'm giving up. I still think she can and will win. I just don't think that in the end that many voters will vote Obama/Brown.

[Jeff]

It's interesting to note some things. First off I can't help but notice that this polling firm doesn't say how many women they poll. This could be the reason that the personhood bill failed overwhelmingly despite this polling firm predicting that it would pass by a large amount of votes.

It seems that polling firms under-estimate women voters.

[Dustin Ingalls]

Jeff, you comment here all the time (unless it's a different Jeff). As always, demographic info is in the link to the full results at the bottom of the post.

[@fearlessphilip]

Elizabeth Warren is doing very well in MA, given the obstacles. As this write-up points out, it is almost impossible for someone to unseat an incumbent with high approval numbers and no scandals against them. In fact, Warren should be doing much worse given her newcomer status and Brown's popularity. The recent rise in her unfavorable numbers probably comes as a result of Brown's false accusation that her daughter was involved in registering Welfare recipients. It's a shame that these lies had the impact Brown wanted.

On the bright side, it is still "early" in campaign season. Many are expecting Warren to receive a bump after her prime time convention speech, which will help with her name recognition. Also, it does seem to be unlikely that people in MA will visit the polls and check Obama/Brown. Politics are hyper-partisan this time around, and "the Obama factor" is bound to provide the final bump in this race.

[NRH]

Are you an idiot, Jeff? Click on 'Full results HERE' at the bottom and you can see the questions asked and the topline results. Q12: 52% women, 48% men.

[William]

@John Friedson - This type of comment is helpful. Are you trying to say she didn’t work and earn her degree? And concerning her ethnicity, Warren is as much of an Indian as the Chief of the tribe whose blood she has. That is to say, exactly the same percentage.

[hawkny]

What I want to know is who paid for the poll of Brown-Warren?

[Paul B]

It would be interesting to know the methodology of this poll, and whether it differs from others before it. For instance, were the others of likely voters as well? Was the sample back-weighted in this or the previous polls? It's hard to contextualize or see a trend without knowing these things.