Public Policy has released a new survey showing Elizabeth Warren leading Scott Brown by the largest margin she has yet recorded, leading by a 53% to 44% margin. This is an increase over the PPP polling from last week, which showed Warren leading by a 50% to 44% margin. What is going on here? The numbers please!
Scott Brown’s favorability has declined, with 46% viewing him favorably, and 45% unfavorably. Warren has increased her favorability, with 52% viewing her favorably, and 43% unfavorably. That is some solid movement in Warren’s direction. PPP has also looked at the two real key numbers in this race:
1) Democratic support for Scott Brown. From day one a central goal of the Elizabeth Warren campaign has been to peel back Democratic support for Scott Brown. It has been a key battle front, with Scott Brown fighting back by emphasizing his bipartisan record, and running away from the Republican label. PPP shows Warren having some success in this area, with only 14% of Democrats in this survey planning on voting for Scott Brown. Brown, in some earlier surveys, registered Democratic support in the 24% neighborhood. That is real slippage.
2) Independents. Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley by a wide margin with independents (over 30% margin, I believe)and needs a wide margin with this group, especially with waning Democratic support. PPP has Brown’s lead with independents down to 15% from the earlier survey margin of 26%, a critical reason for the increasing Warren lead in this survey. If this number is accurate then Brown is in serious trouble. He needs a lead of 25-30%, in my opinion, to win this race.
Warren has opened a 15% lead with women, and this survey actually shows her leading by 2% with men. The gender gap is something that Democrats are trying to drive nationally, and you can see that in Massachusetts it is working. More on that national effort in another post. Another demographic hurdle for Senator Brown, as it is just very difficult to win this race trailing by 15% with women.
PPP also looked at the Presidential race in Massachusetts. As you might expect Barack Obama leads by a wide margin, but not as large as his biggest lead. He leads by a 57% to 39% margin, even drawing 16% of Massachusetts Republicans. I have written earlier about the “Romney drag” on Scott Brown, and I do believe that it is his bad fortune to be up during a Presidential election. It is hurting him, and will bring to the polls a different electorate than the one that elected him in the special election that he won.
PPP interviewed 709 Mass voters, and this survey has a margin of error of 3.7%. I have attached the PPP data below.
Bill Manzi.com 