TPM: It's a race. Elizabeth Warren holds slim two point lead over Scott Brown!

[flpoljunkie]

09.20.2011 — 11:29 AM
IT'S A RACE

A new poll out of Massachusetts shows Elizabeth Warren with a slim two point lead over Sen. Scott Brown (R). That's basically a tie race, but considerably ahead of where Warren's been in the previous polls. The last time the pollster, PPP, surveyed the race Brown had a 15 point lead.

— Josh Marshall

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/09/its_a_race_2.php?ref=fpblg

[flpoljunkie]

1. More from PPP on this poll...

September 20, 2011

Warren takes lead on Brown

Elizabeth Warren has had an incredibly successful launch to her Senate campaign and actually leads Scott Brown now by a 46-44 margin, erasing what was a 15 point deficit the last time we polled the state in early June.

Warren's gone from 38% name recognition to 62% over the last three months and she's made a good first impression on pretty much everyone who's developed an opinion about her during that period of time. What was a 21/17 favorability rating in June is now 40/22- in other words she's increased the voters with a positive opinion of her by 19% while her negatives have risen only 5%.

The surprising movement toward Warren has a lot to do with her but it also has a lot to do with Scott Brown. We now find a slight plurality of voters in the state disapproving of him- 45%, compared to only 44% approving. We have seen a steady decline in Brown's numbers over the last 9 months. In early December his approval was a +24 spread at 53/29. By June it had declined to a +12 spread at a 48/36. And now it's continued that fall to its current place.

Brown's position has always been a little tenuous as a Republican in a strongly Democratic state, making him very dependent on the support of Obama voters to stay above ground. In June he was at 72/17 with McCain voters and now he's at 74/18, pretty much the same. But with Obama voters he's gone from 35/48 to 27/62, accounting for the entire drop in his overall approval numbers. It's a similar story when you look at the horse race numbers. Last time Brown led Warren 87-6 with McCain voters and now it's 87-9. But with Obama voters Warren's turned what was only a 47-24 lead into a 68-20 one.

more...

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/09/warren-takes-lead-on-brown.html

[midnight]

2. K&R

[karynnj]

3. Yay!! At least that might end the "he's not beatable" claims - even from some Democrats

I wonder if the MA papers will cover this. Their coverage of Brown has been so fawning that when in a few polls Kerry had a higher favorable number - they still claimed Brown was the most popular MA elected official because - though he had lower favorables, Kerry had higher negatives.

[flpoljunkie]

5. Boston Globe has a special link for Elizabeth Warren, but this is not yet on it.

http://topics.boston.com/elizabeth-warren/?p1=Well_HotTopics_links

[karynnj]

6. Here's the take from the bank interests - they are worried

After quoting the article that you have in the OP, they say:

That's a slim margin, but again, for a non-incumbent liberal it's pretty remarkable.

And though Warren would be just one Senator we actually could see her working with tea party types in opposing bailouts, and other areas kneecapping the strength of big banks, even if ostensibly they were opposed on regulatory issues like Dodd-Frank.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-leads-on-scott-brown-in-new-poll-2011-9#ixzz1YVjuCwAS

I wonder if they know how good this sounds as AN ENDORSEMENT of Warren.

However, I wonder if Brown is really as concerned as he should be. He is STILL bothering Obama about playing basketball with him - http://thehill.com/capital-living/in-the-know/182471-scott-brown-ready-to-hoop-it-up-against-obama-but-cant-get-on-the-white-house-court-

[Mass]

7. This comes the day after she announced, so she got a huge media coverage.

Yes, she will get the coverage, because she is the latest media hype in Boston (positive and negative).

Unfortunately, this will probably also mean that there will be no primary, which is bad for everybody (her and us).

[karynnj]

9. I agree that this hype, not given to any of the other contenders, is

what has raised her positives and name recognition unbelievably quickly.

However, in the underlying numbers there is another just as significant story. Brown is cratering. In the last polls I saw his favorables had fallen below 50%, but his unfavorables were much lower. Here, the favorable number fell 4 points to 44%, but more importantly the unfavorable number rose to 45%. This is a huge change.

More ominously, is that there were not that many things between the two polls. His campaign did get caught with juvenile twitter dirty tricks, but the other thing he got coverage for was his training in Afghanistan, which he may well have done as a PR stunt.

I wonder if the two things are independent - or whether it was seeing someone who looked like a winner allowed people to say their opinion was "unfavorable" rather than neutral.

[KeyserSoze87]

4. YES!

This is such good news!

:bounce:

[vaberella]

8. Good for her. I'm still not holding my breath.n/t

[AtomicKitten]

10. Could not have conjured up a better candidate to take back Teddy's seat.

[flpoljunkie]

11. Yes. Teddy would be very pleased.

[Tarheel_Dem]

13. Ditto!

:thumbsup:

[EleanorR]

12. accidently hit unrec.

Can somebody give this a tick up please?

This is wonderful news.

[Mudoria]

14. It's over a year till the election

With so many things that can happen between now and then I really don't see why anyone gets worked up over polls taken recently. Polls now are meaningless. When she is within polling distance of victory in late October 2012 get back to me.

[Yavin4]

15. Ever Notice How When A Liberal Takes A Lead in the Polls, It's Called "Slim"?

But when a Repug takes a small lead, they never qualify it in any way?

[krawhitham]

16. It will not be a race for long, she will crush him