Boston – Massachusetts Senate Race: Poll Shows Shift Toward GOP Candidate

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    Republican Scott Brown (left) and Democratic candidate Martha Coakley prepare for their debate.Boston – A new poll in the Massachusetts Senate race shows a shift in favor of the Republican Party and a potential disaster for President Barack Obama and his Democratic political agenda in Tuesday’s special election.

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    The Suffolk University survey released late Thursday showed Scott Brown, a Republican state senator, with 50 percent of the vote in the race to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in this overwhelmingly Democratic state.

    Democrat Martha Coakley had 46 percent. That was a statistical tie since it was within the poll’s 4.4 percentage point margin of error, but far different from a 15-point lead the Massachusetts attorney general enjoyed in a Boston Globe survey released over the weekend.

    The Suffolk poll also confirmed a fundamental shift in voter attitudes telegraphed in recent automated polls that Democrats had dismissed as unscientific and the product of GOP-leaning organizations.

    And it signaled a possible death knell for the 60-vote Democratic supermajority the president has been relying upon to stop Republican filibusters in the Senate and pass not only his health care overhaul, but the rest of his legislative agenda heading into this fall’s mid-term elections.

    Brown has pledged to vote against the health care bill, and his election would give Senate Republicans the 41st vote they need to sustain a filibuster.

    But Secretary of State William F. Galvin, Massachusetts’ top election official, said certifying Tuesday’s results could take more than two weeks.

    That delay could give Senate Democrats time push Obama’s signature legislation through Congress. Sen. Paul G. Kirk Jr., the interim replacement for the seat, says he will vote for the bill if given the chance.

    Republican are using the threatened delay as a rallying point to argue Democrats have been gaming the rules to pass the health care bill despite public opposition.

    The third candidate in the race, independent Joseph L. Kennedy, had 3 percent in the Suffolk poll. The Libertarian businessman is unrelated to the senator, who died Aug. 25 of brain cancer.

    “Although the results show a race within the statistical margin of error, Scott Brown has surged dramatically,” David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center, said in a statement. “He is attracting independent support by a wide margin and even winning some Democrats who won’t vote the party line this time.”

    Paleologos said Joseph Kennedy’s supporters could end up being pivotal in the election’s outcome.

    “A late rotation away from Kennedy to one of the major candidates could have a significant impact,” he said.

    The survey of 500 registered Massachusetts voters was conducted in a three-day span ending Wednesday, when Brown enjoyed a surge after being widely seen as beating Coakley in their final debate on Monday. The question surrounding it and a number of recent surveys was whether the group sampled accurately reflected the likely field of voters Tuesday.

    The election comes the day after the three-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Snow is also forecast for Monday, and many locals often head south for warmer weather or north to go skiing during the shortened work week.

    Brown supporters, meanwhile, are mimicking Republicans and independents who shaped recent GOP victories in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races. They are showing a high degree of enthusiasm for their candidate, a relative unknown who has never run statewide, while Democrats have shown little passion for Coakley although she cruised in the four-way Democratic primary with nearly 50 percent of the vote.

    The White House has shown increasing alarm about the race, with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel placing calls to top Massachusetts Democrats to assess Coakley’s chances and weigh the costs and benefits of a potential Obama visit.

    Former President Bill Clinton was making two stops in Massachusetts Friday on behalf of Coakley, while former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani was to stop in Boston to tout Brown’s anti-terror credentials.

    A Coakley loss was long viewed as unthinkable among local political analysts and observers. The state not only has a Democratic governor, but overwhelming Democratic majorities in its House and Senate, as well as an all-Democratic congressional delegation.

    Kennedy, meanwhile, was a liberal Democratic icon who made the goal of a health care overhaul the capstone of his nearly 47-year career. Brown has long been best known in Massachusetts as a former model who once posed naked in Cosmopolitan magazine, as well as the father of an “American Idol” contestant


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    36 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    another mitt romney. rino republicans in massachusettes

    SimchaB
    SimchaB
    14 years ago

    Ha Ha Ha! I can’t stop laughing! The curse of the Kennedy’s continues!

    Gregaaron
    Gregaaron
    14 years ago

    Wow – we’re even getting Massachusetts…apparently some places have sunk so low that they’re starting to find their way back up again…

    gop 2010
    gop 2010
    14 years ago

    Less than 2 weeks ago this election was considered “safe democrat”!Till the ground began to shake under the democrat”s AND OBAMA’S feet last week espically when public policy polling showed brown leading.

    SimchaB
    SimchaB
    14 years ago

    Ha Ha Ha! I can’t stop laughing! The curse of the Kennedy’s continues!

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Mr. Brown should have hatsalocha in his quest for the PEOPLES seat in Mass.

    alex
    alex
    14 years ago

    I think the choice here is simple. people have a choice to either vote for a combat veteran or a party hack who to me is a soviet style apparatchik.

    alex
    alex
    14 years ago

    I think the choice here is simple. people have a choice to either vote for a combat veteran or a party hack who to me is a soviet style apparatchik.

    Tzi Bar David
    Tzi Bar David
    14 years ago

    They can’t steal the election if it’s not close… VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!!

    down with obama
    down with obama
    14 years ago

    dont think hell pull it off but it will be close let those liberals start running for there life

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    We should all say tehillim for Coakly and a win for her on Tuesday. If she loses, it will be much more difficult for the President to move ahead on health care reform and global warming legislation and will undermine his efforts to secure a peace settlement in the Middle East.

    to 1 and 7
    to 1 and 7
    14 years ago

    mitt romney never pretended to be a staunch republican. he was always closer to the far left of the republican scale. scott brown is a fiscal conservative.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    I think that this is an indication of our country’s revolt against the Democrats. They are a party that is out to destroy our liberty, our freedom, and our finances. Obama is running our country into the ground and people are becoming hip to this. I pray to Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu that Scott Brown wins this election, and I pray that Chris Dodd’s seat goes to a Republican, as well.

    SimchaB
    SimchaB
    14 years ago

    Reply to #19 : Take a peek at a dictionary and check out the difference between peek & peak!

    SimchaB
    SimchaB
    14 years ago

    Reply to #26 : Your reading comprehension skills are clearly deficient. The article didn’t discuss any tragedies, so why would you think I’m laughing at them. I was laughing at the probability of the Democrats losing Ted Kennnedy’s longtime seat. I merely added on that this stroke of bad luck might be a continuation of the infamous Kennedy curse. If I would have reversed my comment then you would have a point. Though I think many would disagree.

    SimchaB
    SimchaB
    14 years ago

    Reply to #30 : This is getting rediculous, it appears you fancy yourself to be the Grand Inquisitor! By the way check up the difference between you’re and your. I stand by my asserted intentions despite the aspersions you cast on my true name. I used punctuation in my original comment precisely to indicate that those were two separate thoughts. Perhaps I should have used two paragraphs for picyaune nitpickers such as yourself. It seems to me that if Kennedy family patriarch would have been successful in aligning the US with Nazi Germany there would have been an astronomical increase in pain and suffering in this world. What about the suffering of Mary Jo Kopechne and her family? Where does that rate on the prosecutorial scale of the most esteemed and benevolent OMG?

    Simcha B
    Simcha B
    14 years ago

    Reply toply to #34 : I see that this discussion is pointless, as your mind is made up and you stubbornly refuse to admit that you could have misunderstood my original post. I already admitted that I should have made separation between the two comments, but you remain defiant in your pious concern for the offspring of that vile Nazi Joseph Kennedy who would have gladly been an accompice to the extermination of 6 million of our brethren. Yet you persist in calling me vile. Why don’t you have Kerry/Kennedy Waitress sandwich and crack jokes about poor old Mary Jo Kopechne, you shameless Kennedy sympathizer. Since you are a hopeless recidivist, I will not waste any further time on this. This will be my final post on this matter. You may have the final word and no doubt repeat your scurrilous canard. Shalom!