Warren rebounds

Things have been going Elizabeth Warren's way in the Massachusetts Senate race over the last month. She's gained 7 points and now leads Scott Brown 48-46 after trailing him by a 49-44 margin on our last poll.

Warren's gaining because Democratic voters are coming back into the fold. Last month she led only 73-20 with Democrats. Now she's up 81-13. That explains basically the entire difference between the two polls. There are plenty of Democrats who like Scott Brown- 29% approve of him- but fewer are now willing to vote for him. That's probably because of another finding on our poll- 53% of voters want Democrats to have control of the Senate compared to only 36% who want Republicans in charge. More and more Democrats who may like Brown are shifting to Warren because they don't like the prospect of a GOP controlled Senate.

Brown's approval numbers have actually improved since our poll last month. 55% of voters approve of him to 34% who disapprove. He continues to dominate the race with independents, leading 56-35, and he's taking 94% of the Republican vote. 56% of voters think he's ideologically 'about right' to only 29% who think he's too conservative. And 49% consider him to be more an 'independent voice for Massachusetts' than the 40% who think he's more a 'partisan voice for the national Republican Party.' Brown continues to be one of the more popular Senators in the country and he's doing what he needs to do in this campaign, but his party label may end up being more than he can overcome.

Warren's image has seen some improvement in the last month. She has a +8 net favorability at 51/43, up 5 points from last month when she was at 46/43. That reverses the trend of her numbers falling in every poll we'd done this year up until now. Again the difference is Democrats becoming more enthusiastic about her. She's gone from a 75/16 spread with them last month now up to an 81/12 one.

This race has 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. Although there aren't a lot of undecided voters left they seem more likely to break toward Warren than Brown- they're supporting Barack Obama for President by a 76-2 margin- and at the end of the day most of those folks will probably vote the same party for both offices. This race continues to be a toss up but after a good summer for Brown the momentum is heading back in Warren's direction.

Full results here

Comments

[Chuck Tranberg]

Are you going to release the Presidential numbers in MA? after all it will be interesting to see how far behind Romney is in the state he spent four years as Governor.

[Obama 2012]

Thank goodness. It will be truly sad if Mass. has a chance to be Warren in the Senate and doesn't take it. Truly sad. Not often to we get a chance to get a person of this caliber in the Senate. Someone who is 100% working for average Americans instead of corporate interests.

[Mtsher]

you say that the undecideds prefer obama 76-2. But if undecideds are six percent, that means around 50-60 voters. Does that mean that only one voter who is undecided is for Romney?

[Lorin Kusmin]

I wonder if Brown will run for Governor in 2014 if he loses his Senate race? His party ID is likely to matter less in a race for Governor.

[Seth]

If you see believe Warren is 100% for the working class then you truely are daft. Indeed, a woman who lies about her heritage possibly for preferential academic admittance, makes $300,000/yr teaching one class a semester and was the intellectual foundation for the OWS movement is of such high caliber....

She would be nothing more than the rest of the Democrat delegation - rumber stamps who ignore the majority of the MA electorate, who are independents, not democrats.

[Edith Morgan]

Stoop with the canard that Warren lied about her heritage: she did not recive preferential treatment because of it. Look up her resume on
Wikipedia, and compare it to Brown's, where you will find some surprising info...
The chief of the
Cherokee nation is 1/32nd cherokee, just like Warren... Maybe she should be chief?
All kidding aside, what is this nonsense about blood, in a country where not so long ago one drop of black blood condemned you to use the "colored" facilities?
Warren did not lie - all of us have family legends we have not checked, rather than to call our grandparents liars.....