BOSTON (YBH.ME) – Two new polls released today offer an astonishingly different picture of this month’s special election in Massachusetts. Voters in the Bay State head to the polls on January 19th to choose a replacement for deceased Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy.
Massachussetts State Attorney General Martha Coakley
The Boston Globe has Martha Coakley over Republican Scott Brown by a huge margin of 17 points. The Globe poll shows Coakley up 53%-36%. The Boston Globe hasn’t released the numbers behind their polling. They do, however, put Mr. Brown’s “likability” at 44%, nine points higher than his overall poll number. The Globe poll also put support for the current House and Senate health care bills at 43% for vs. 36% against.
Public Policy Polling (PPP) paints a much different picture with their poll; Brown has a slight lead over Coakley 48%-47%. PPP poll respondents voted for Obama by a margin of 54%-38%, a potentially troubling sign for Ms. Coakley, as Democrats are losing independent voters in the Bay State. However, with three times as many registered Democrats than Republicans, Independents play a smaller role in Massachusetts. The PPP poll found 70% of independent voters have a favorable rating of Scott Brown versus only 36% for Martha Coakley.
PPP is a polling company based in North Carolina, headed by entrepreneur Tom Jensen. The firm handles poll work primarily for smaller clients in the southern U.S. and was judged by the Wall Street Journal “as one of the two most accurate companies in the country,” in swing state polling in last year’s Presidential contest.
The Boston Globe was an early supporter of Barack Obama, saying in their ringing 2007 endorsement that “when it comes to waging peace, Obama has the leadership skills to reset the country’s reputation in the world.” Also, in our cursory research, we couldn’t find an instance of The Boston Globe endorsing a Republican in any race.
The special election in Massachusetts is starting to make national headlines, as Scott Brown is running a much stronger campaign than expected. If Mr. Brown were to win, it would force Democrats to rethink their current health care policy. Mr. Brown would be in a position to provide the crucial 41st vote needed to block the Democrats super-majority in the U.S. Senate.
Clearly, one of the two polls is wrong. Momentum seems to be heading in Mr. Brown’s direction overall, but Massachusetts is a “bright blue” state. The Kennedy family, virtual royalty in Massachusetts, have endorsed Martha Coakley.
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John Romano is the publisher and editor of Yes, But However!, a musician, a former political correspondent for BBC Radio London, and a serial web entrepreneur. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/yesbuthowever or John Romano on Google+John Romano article archive.
