MA-Sen: PPP Has Brown (R) Up One Point

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (1/7-9, likely voters, no trendlines):

Martha Coakley (D): 47

Scott Brown (R): 48

Undecided: 6

(MoE: ±3.6%)

Some findings from Tom Jensen:

• As was the case in the Gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia last year, it looks like the electorate in Massachusetts will be considerably more conservative than the one that showed up in 2008. Obama took the state by 26 points then, but those planning to vote next week only report having voted for him by 16.

• Republicans are considerably more enthusiastic about turning out to vote than Democrats are. 66% of GOP voters say they are ‘very excited’ about casting their votes, while only 48% of Democrats express that sentiment- and that’s among the Democrats who are planning to vote in contrast to the many who are apparently not planning to do so at this point.

• Brown has eye popping numbers with independents, sporting a 70/16 favorability rating with them and holding a 63-31 lead in the horse race with Coakley. Health care may be hurting Democratic fortunes with that group, as only 27% of independents express support for Obama’s plan with 59% opposed.

Tom also offers some thoughts on how he thinks Coakley can win, and says that PPP will be back in the field next weekend. Taegan Goddard also has this update:

Meanwhile, polls from the Boston Globe and Boston Herald should be released in the morning.

A source tells Jim Geraghty that the Globe poll finds Coakley ahead by 15 points and the Herald poll finds her ahead by seven points — but just one point among likely voters.

Mark Blumenthal also promised that Pollster would put up a trend chart once it has a fifth poll of this race (PPP makes five).

UPDATE: The Boston Globe’s poll is out. As usual, it was conducted by UNH, a pollster whose methodologies I mistrust and whom we usually relegate to the digest – indeed, Dean Barker of the indispensible Blue Hampshire has rightly eviscerated UNH director Andy Smith for inhabiting “Cloud Hampshire.” I’m not sure their Massachusetts results are any better, but anyhow, here goes:

UNH (1/2-6, likely voters incl. leaners, no trendlines):

Martha Coakley (D): 53

Scott Brown (R): 36

Undecided/Other: 11

(MoE: ±4.2%)

I’m not going to cherrypick – I don’t like UNH when they’ve got bad news for Dems, so I’m not going to relax just because this survey happens to show good news for Dems. In fact, the full polling memo hasn’t been published yet (though I expect it will appear here if it does go online), so there’s no way to even know what assumptions Andy Smith is making. (UPDATE: The memo is now available here.)

178 thoughts on “MA-Sen: PPP Has Brown (R) Up One Point”

  1. The lack of urgency from the national committees. And obviously from the Coakley campaign itself. Are they not conducting internal polling? If this was coming it should have been clear long before now.  

  2. Republicans parading around as Independents that skew at the very least the meaningfulness of the cross-tabs?

    And it’s not really Obama+16: 7% are Don’t remember/Other and the vast majority are Brown supporters. I’d say it is closer to Obama+10.

    I find this result hard to believe, but what I find harder to believe is the stupid Deeds like move by Coakley to go dark for a month. You cannot coast, you need to campaign and keep campaigning.  

  3. possible that Coakley and the DSCC/DNC simply believed that Massachusetts was too blue for Brown to have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. Anyone here wanna wager that the GOP would pull a Willie Horton against Coakley this week?

  6. I was one of those people who actually thought that all these “We might lose this seat!” talk was crazy talk from people who thought another 1994 was possible. Now Im fearing another 94. WTF is wrong w/ people? Why would people even bother voting in 08 if they’re just gonna not care about ’10 and beyond. I honestly don’t see the problem with taking a max 1 hour out of your vote and freakin vote. Is it that hard? I understand people are pissed off about healthcare. So am I. But don’t people understand that Obama didn’t run for President just to do this healthcare debate. No. he ran and was freakin elected to solve more than one problem in our country. And for anyone who is pissed off at him and the dems right now. Did the banks fail? No! Did our nation collapse and turn into another Great Depression? No! Is the economy is bad? yes but if anyone expects to go from a horrible economy to a great economy in a year than those people are incredibly stupid. It took our nation years to fully get out of the Great Depression and they expect us to do differently now? People can be so stupid right now.      

  7. Maybe once we lose this seat people will start to take me seriously.  This is horrible.

    Why in the world were they dark for a whole month?  She has no problem raising money, so what in the world was she saving it for???

  8. As I mentioned earlier, the chatter about tomorrow’s newspaper polls is getting louder and louder, so hopefully those ought to stave off the trend lines from going too far into Brown’s direction.

    Still, I concur with the general sentiment here: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

  9. the total votes in the Dem primary were 664,795 vs the GOP 162,706. I know the Dem primary was actually competitive but come on! Are those Dems really just gonna stay home and have Brown win? All I know is that Im facebooking all my friends in Boston to vote 4 Coakley    

  11. I don’t think the sky is falling. special elections are ALWAYS hard to predict. Remember, even without the funkiness of PPP’s polling circumstances, Siena still found Hoffman up by 5, a miss slightly outside the margin of error. PPP is a good pollster but the only thing to freak out about is the election day results themselves.

    That being said, I agree that Coakley should be taking this seriously and I will nag my sister to vote.

  12. re: MA-06, if Coakley loses or even cuts it close I think we need to worry about John Tierney. As a Rhode Islander who is pretty well acquainted with Massachusetts, I originally laughed off the Republican in the race, but if a statewide official is having trouble beating a state senator who posed naked, then perhaps MA-06 where Hudak is raising a good amount of money and which is slightly less Democratic than Massachusetts as a whole could be trouble.

  13. There are a few things to perhaps give Coakley some hope:

    – Brown leads 2-to-1 among Independents and STILL only has a 1% lead. That shows you how much the Dem registration advantage counts, even when the Dem nominee is practically the walking dead.

    – Undecided voters are more Democrat than Republican by a 3:2 margin.

    – Much of Brown’s lead here appears to stem from odd support among Democrats and even self-described liberals. That tells me Coakley’s done an abysmal job in defining her opponent, and that is why I believe a negative campaign is in order.

    That supposed poll citing a 7-point Coakley lead among registered voters (1-point among likely) sounds plausible to me as well.  

  15. It hardly seems possible, given how unpopular the Republicans are in the NE. Of course, this could just be more like PPP’s 2008 PA primary poll. Everyone else had Hillary up 10, and they had Obama winning by a slim margin. Go figure. . .

  16. PPP typically lays a giant egg in predicting turnout for special elections or a variety of Presidential primaries.

  17. is clearly nervous about this race, considering they sent out an email to the +10 million people on their email list earlier today asking them to phone bank.

    Here are some highlights:


    While the large majority of Massachusetts voters support the Democratic candidate, Attorney General Martha Coakley, special interests have poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars to mislead voters — and the traditionally low turnout in special elections means this race could be very, very close.

    Each voter we reach could be the one who tips the balance.

    Making these calls could be the single most important thing you can do right now to ensure the passage of health reform.

    But it all comes down to you. We need you to help get the word out, so please start calling today.

  19. …I wouldn’t vote for Coakley solely due to Fells Acre.  But I assume I would be in a very small minority since unfortunately trying to appear “tough on crime” always works even if you railroad the innocent.

    The problem is more Democrats always overestimate themselves and sometimes get caught with their pants down.  Like for example in 2002 after Weld and Cellucci left leaving the hapless Jane Swift making a fool out of herself few saw the Democrats being able to blow that Governor’s race. Mitt Romney came in and won.

    Ted Kennedy understood you couldn’t take the electorate for granted and ran a tough and even perhaps unfair hard hitting campaign against that same Mitt Romney in 1994.  If Coakley wants to beat Brown she’ll need to tear into him and make sure he is tied to the worst excesses of the Republicans in Washington so he can’t get away with portraying himself as “one of the decent ones.”  Lazy and/or arrogants Democrats can and have been beaten in the Bay State.  If she wants Ted Kennedy’s seat she’ll have to play by his rule book.

    Massachusetts hasn’t been very kind to former State Attorney Generals who have started out as frontrunners.  Scott Harshbarger, Francis Bellotti, Tom Reilly being three of the last four to hold the post.  The eight Massachusetts Attorney Generals preceding Martha Coakley have all either run for Senate or Governor.  Of those eight the only one who was successful was Republican Edward Brooke in 1966 (re-elected in 1972).

    We’ll see whether Coakley makes or succumbs to history.

  21. reveal a mixed bag for Jan. 19:

    Boston College – first day of classes

    Boston University – in session, classes begin Jan. 13

    Harvard – not in session, classes begin Jan. 25

    MIT – not in session, classes begin Feb. 2

    Northeastern – in session, classes begin Jan. 11

    UM Amherst – first day of classes

    UM Boston – finals week

    UM Lowell – not in session, classes begin Jan. 25

    I wonder if they needed to have the special election on this date or if it could have been held later.  A mid-February election would have been better for student turnout.

  22. Yes, I’m always spinning everything as a positive for Dems, but this poll can be used in a positive way. I think this will highly motivate a lot of lazy voters to turn out, but more importantly, I think this will motive volunteers. The dedicated GOTV is why Obama won by the margin he did, and I think this will motivate people to really campaign for Coakley. That said, she better bust her butt over the next two weeks, as this poll certainly reflects the apathetic mood we all dread.

  23. In all seriousness, the poll was out for five days which seems a bit too long.  And another problem with UNH is how volatile their numbers have been.  Just look at their New Hampshire polls in the final days of the 2008 election: on October 26 they found Obama up by 16, the next day he was up by 25.  While they got the final margin about right they showed Obama losing more than half his lead between the 27th and the 31st.  Pretty hard to believe.  http://uselectionatlas.org/POL…

  25. A big headline in the Globe blaring “Senate Race Tied!” might actually light a fire under Democrats to get out and vote.  Instead, the one poll that shows a continuing Coakley landslide (i.e. message: don’t worry, it’s all under control) is the Globe’s poll.  That’s the one that the Globe will presumably trumpet on their front page since they paid for the thing.  That kind of stinks.  (I wonder whether there’s any chance that the Globe will report on the divergent polling numbers, at least?  Or maybe Massachusetts TV stations will do it…)

    What we don’t want is for the huge audience of Globe readers to get a message of complacency just as we’re all hoping people will wake up about the fact that this might actually be a close race.

  26. Two comments having read the Globe story (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/10/senate_poll_coakley_up_15_points/?page=full):

    (1) Who is Joseph Kennedy, the independent candidate, and does it make a difference that some other polls are not including him? (He gets 5% in this Globe/UNH poll.)  Whoever this guy is, having the name “Kennedy” in this particular race has to make him at least a minor factor, as ridiculous as that sounds.

    (2) At least this thing says it’s of likely (rather than registered) voters.  I wonder what the likely voter screen looked like.

  27. It actually seems like these numbers lend some credence to PPP’s poll. According to UNH, among those “extremely interested” in the election, Coakley and Brown are tied at 47%. This also lines up with the Herald numbers we’re supposedly going to see in which Coakley is ahead by a single point among “likely voters”.

    Takeaway – PPP’s likely voter screen is waaay more conservative than UNH’s, and probably slightly more conservative than the Herald’s. Who knows whose is closer to reality, but they bear out the point that the issue in this race is clearly TURNOUT. The lower the turnout, the higher the likelihood that Brown pulls it off.

  28. I know it’s been said alot already but Fells Acres is really a black mark on her record. It really damages her, especially among dems.

    And to be honest, it should. She behaved disgracefully, and put her own popularity ahead of what was right. I’m not a big fan of Brown , but if I was in Ma, I’d lean towards supporting him. More than just turnout is at play in these polls.

  29. is number 4 of 32 in Nate Silver’s pollster rankings, with an error rate of 1.41 compared to the average of 1.97.

    PPP is number 12 of 32, with an error rate of 1.86.

    Neither is really slouchy in general, but one of them embarrassingly wrong.  I suspect it’s PPP because they have a history of colossal, narrative-changing fuckups (NY-23, PA-Pres (D)).

  31. are going nuts. In the comments sections of multiple sites they’ve gone off on their loony fantasies about how “ACORN, SEIU” are going to “steal” the election away from them.

  32. is that people seem to think Brown is moderate like Romney used to be. That is 100% false. He is anti-abortion,all things gay, financial regulations, public option, gun control, progressive taxation, cap and trade, unions, ect. nothing moderate about him.  

  33. From weather.com – Tues Jan 19

    Boston: 34 high, partly cloudy (sunny/mostly for several days before).

    Pittsfield: 31 high, “few snow showers”

    So far, weather should not affect turnout. (Hope the workers driving voters to the polls have snow tires, just in case.)

  35. the guy has the same freaking name as a Democratic Congressman.

    Massachusetts has elected people with famous names and no relation before (State Treasurer John Francis Kennedy, 1955-1961). It’d be a shame if a Republican won a Senate seat because some dude somehow got on the ballot (hey, I wonder who could have helped him out, coughcough)

  37. “The lower the turnout, the better the odds for Scott Brown.”

    Don’t think we needed any polls to tell us that.

    I think this finding is more important…

    “Those differences mean the overall results reported by any poll are going to be very sensitive to the “tightness” of the screen or likely voter model used. The more restrictive the screen, the closer the result. My assumption is that the “if you do not intend to vote…please hang up” automated methodology employed by PPP produced an effectively tighter screen and, thus, a likely voter sample closer to the “certain” or “extremely interested” subgroups of the Boston Globe and Rasmussen polls.”

    So PPP missed lots of people who will probably vote even though they aren’t exactly thrilled about it. Indeed the Globe poll supports that – they found a 47-47 tie among those “extremely interested” in the election but a 57-35 Coakley lead with people “very interested”.

  39. done for MA, but UNH/Smith polls are (unfortunately) a fairly standard feature of the electoral landscape in NH.

    Typically, Smith does not weigh for party ID.  His samples are also almost always too small.

    So when you factor in the randomness of the non-ID weighing with the small poll, you get greater unpredictability.

    Which is why I can’t at all feel good right now about that Coakley margin.

    (To be fair, UNH/Smith polls are more accurate when he does daily tracking, because they are right before an election and he’s got it on 3-day avgs, iirc.)

    But one poll out of nowhere on a race from him, and you could see it hit meaningfully to the left or right of where it should be, given the standards employed.  

  40. It’s just a stupid opinion, but honestly, I think PPP is trying to drum up some Democratic support by showing a poll with the Republican in the lead.  I’m not necessarily accusing them of fudging the numbers, but I think it’s very convenient that they show the Repub 1 point ahead, and that they are so outwordly advertising it’s results to the blogosphere.  PPP is a democratic polling firm, I think they are trying all they can to make sure that Democrats heed the warning and actually get off their asses and vote.  

    Also my stupid opinion – Scott Brown ain’t winning this race.  Period.  Not gonna happen.  That being said, if I was in Massachusetts, I’d be getting my ass out on the streets and telling everybody to get out and vote.  

  41. Brown’s starting a money bomb today trying to raise $500,000 for the last push. It’s a hefty amount and he’s hoping to raise some more publicity and help with his whole “momentum” argument.

    I’m honestly not worried about it. Coakely has more money than she knows what to do with (quite literally), and she’s probably about ready to vaporise Brown reid-style, with ad upon ad drumming up some  ol’ fashion red vs blue tribalism.

  42. Sent me an email asking me to call Massachusetts voters so they get out and vote. If you got that email, you should go make calls. If you did not, you should still go to Organizing for America to get those voters out!

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