New Massachusetts polling chart: Brown becomes a 2:1 favorite

by: Chris Bowers

Mon Jan 18, 2010 at 18:55


And here is what is (probably) the final Massachusetts polling chart:

Massachusetts special election polling, 2010
Pollster Poll Mid-date Coakley Brown
Insider Advantage Jan 17 43 52
Cross Target Jan 17 42 52
ARG Jan 16 45 52
Research 2000 Jan 16 48 48
PPP Jan 16 46 51
InsideMedford Jan 15 41 51
Cross Target Jan 14 39 54
ARG Jan 13 45 48
Research 2000 Jan 13 49 41
Suffolk Jan 12 46 50
Rasmussen Jan 11 49 47
Mellman Jan 09 50 36
PPP Jan 08 47 48
UNH Jan 04 53 36
Rasmussen Jan 04 50 41
Mean Brown +0.9 46.20 47.13

My general election model now gives Brown a 65% chance of winning.

Based on that model, I feel pretty confident Scott Brown will not win by as much as 6.9%, as Pollster.com is currently estimating.  Unfortunately, I feel pretty confident Scott Brown will win anyway.  The polling is converging and, as such, so are the electoral forecasts.

Further, the error in my model will probably favor Brown at this point.  This is because the polls from the second to last week of the campaign are more favorable to Coakley than the polls over the final week.  A report by NCPP showed that polls taken in the second to last week of the campaign are about 15% less accurate than polls taken during the final week of the campaign.  While I have not yet tested to see if applying this negative 15% weight to polls taken during the penultimate week of the campaign would produce even more accurate results, I suspect it would.

So, I think it will be closer than many are forecasting, but I still think Scott Brown will win.  While a Coakley win is not out of the question, at this point it is not very likely.

Chris Bowers :: New Massachusetts polling chart: Brown becomes a 2:1 favorite

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New Massachusetts polling chart: Brown becomes a 2:1 favorite | 36 comments
say it isnt so (4.00 / 1)
From word on the ground, this one may really be over.  Hard to believe but looking at those numbers, looks like increased turnout and attention may help Brown.

Don't get what has happened?

What are you hearing? n/t (0.00 / 0)


REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
friend... (0.00 / 0)
Working Coakley GOTV, said can't escape the Brown signs, bumper stickers and visibility around, many even union areas.

Who knows that may not translate into votes, signs don't vote...but the handwritting may be on-the-wall.

[ Parent ]
Signs mean little... (0.00 / 0)
Seriously, very little.  In 2004, some young punk was challenging Dennis Kucinich.  His signs were plastered EVERYWHERE in his district!  I mean all over the place!  
Kucinich won 70% of the vote.

The Coakley camp obviously was behind the 8-ball in stuff like that, and it helps to have more visibility, but, it's not the end of the world....

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

[ Parent ]
Signs (0.00 / 0)
Like lord_mike said, don't take the yard signs too seriously. A few elections ago, the Republican in my state House district (a lean R district) had a 5 to 1 yard sign advantage, but it didn't follow through on Election Day. The Democrat ran a fantastic campaign in the last few days and ended up carrying every single precinct.

Yard signs do two things-- raise name recognition (done, now irrelevant), and demoralize the volunteers for the other side. The best thing your friend can do right now is stay optimistic and keep working.

[ Parent ]
Reminds me of "Why do they hate us?" (4.00 / 2)

[ Parent ]
For our fries, silly (0.00 / 0)
They're so free! (Or no more than $1 at McDonalds.)

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton
[ Parent ]
For the "value" size perhaps (0.00 / 0)
where the fries aren't even in a cardboard box, but in a dinky paper bag.

The large fries, sadly, run about $2.30 where I am.

[ Parent ]
Sadly? (0.00 / 0)
Weren't we all supposed to be for better health for all around here? Seems to me that this is one case where the fast food industry is actually looking out for our hearts and wallets, however unintentionally. If that ain't what America's all about, I don't know what is.

Life, liberty, and the perfuit of freedom fries...

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

[ Parent ]
I'll be convinced of McDonald's's altruism (0.00 / 0)
When they actually stop selling large fries.  Until then, raising prices isn't a way of trying to discourage people from buying them; it's a way of making more money off a popular product.

I prefer Wendy's fries in any case.  Those are only $1.99 for a large.

[ Parent ]
I franky have little symathy (0.00 / 0)
for people who regularly stuff these starchy, oily and salty elongated heart attack-inducing pills into their mouths. Not that I have any use for fast food chains that thrive off of and exploit suchs peoples' self-destructive habits, either. But it's hard to make the case that it's not abundantly obvious that they're bad for you if eaten on a regular baiss, and anyone who pretends otherwise is an idiot or liar. Plus, factor in externalities and those fries cost society a hell of a lot more than $1.99.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton
[ Parent ]
The complete and utter failure (4.00 / 10)
of accomodationist, establishmentarian, technocratic, soulless, uninspiring, centrist, elitist urban limousine liberalism (and its latest Obamaist variation). If this sort of liberal can't win Ted Kennedy's old seat--to a reactionary blowhard hairstyle Bushist tool no less--then the party needs to undergo some SERIOUS transformations ASAP. I.e. it needs to become more genuinely populist and progressive again.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton
I gather (0.00 / 0)
you didn't agree with Chris' last post before this one?
[ Parent ]
Not exactly (4.00 / 5)
When I complained about the brand of milquetoast liberalism that Dems are currently still seen as dispensing, I wasn't referring to their messaging (although it can certain do with some updating). What I was referring to was the kind of politics that they still tend to practice and the policies that they still tend to persue. I.e. accomodationist and non-confrontational politics, and watered-down faux liberal and neoliberal policies, each of which not only alienate swing voters as they're being practiced and persued (because they look weak, anti-middle class and wholly inadequate), but also end up producing the sorts of economic and other conditions that tend to further alienate such voters (and keep base voters at home).

Messaging is a problem, but a secondary one. The real problem is that Dems have lost their way, in what they try to accomplish, how they try to accomplish it, and what they end up accomplishing. Had Obama & Dems been pushing for a stronger stimulus and health care bill, tougher financial regulation and reform, and other progressive and populist policies--and done so far more aggressively than they have--then I feel fairly certain that not only would they have won the respect of many voters on mere effort alone, but the outcome of these efforts, even after just a year in office, would have yielded results that would have further won over such voters. Instead, they not only didn't fight for non-elites, but they did so for all to see.

They still don't get it. The ONLY way that Dems stay in power long-term and get good things done is if they persue more progressive policies, and do so more aggressively, openly and unashamedly. They MUST move further to the left, ideologically, rhetorically, in policy, and in politics, or theirs will be a very short time in power.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

[ Parent ]
You sound (0.00 / 0)
Exactly like die hard conservatives who blame all their failures on not being conservative enough. When it comes down to it, I guess people at both extremes think the same way: belief that failure results from not being extreme enough while being disconnected from the true reasons of failure.
[ Parent ]
Thanks, Einstein (4.00 / 6)
Genuinely progressive policy like universal health care and financial regulation is EXACTLY as radical and extreme as torture and illegal wiretaps, and Dems' failure to at least attempt to implement the former has nothing to do with voters' loss of faith in them.

I hope they pay you the big bucks for such sage advice!

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

[ Parent ]
The only thing wrong with this analysis… (4.00 / 4)
...is that progressive policies are only "extreme" in the most relative sense. Put it this way: Wall Street's capitalization on conservative deregulation was so extreme that it has caused gross inequality and near-financial collapse, so how could a real antidote be any less stringent? Main Street continues to be upset about the Wall Street bonuses because they're a reminder of how little has been done to impose balance on the financial system. As with many progressive policies, the desired outcome is to assure fairness rather than extremes.

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
[ Parent ]
Hardly merited a substantive response (4.00 / 1)
When one basically equates setting a house on fire with tearing it down to build anew, one loses the right to one--especially when one clearly cribbed off Morning Joe.

Prudent regulation <> reckless deregulation. To suggest otherwise is the height of inanity.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

[ Parent ]
Boring and Insulting at the same time (4.00 / 3)
Look, Zug, there are facts about policies and how they work in various situations.  There are also facts about what political programs people tend to support in various situations.  And sometimes those facts favor one side rather than another in a dispute.  So you can't just come to every argument and assume some equivalence between the two sides that allows you to unthinkingly ascribe every vice to one that you have found in the other.  Do conservatives tend to think that their candidates need to be more conservative both to get elected and do a good job?  Yes.  Is there a lot of reason to think that is silly?  Yes, especially with regards to conservative policies being good for the country.  Does that mean that when progressives do the formally similarly thing that there must also be evidence that suggests that progressives are being silly?  Of course not.
[ Parent ]
Or... (4.00 / 2)
Evolution, creationism. Both just "theories", same thing on the extremity scale, no?

No.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

[ Parent ]
Liberal policies = better politics? Sounds too perfect (0.00 / 0)
Not that I disagree with you, but out of curiosity, if it were shown that Obamacare-style corporate giveaway health care was somehow more popular among the people than Medicare for All, would you be calling on Democrats/liberals to not support Medicare for All?
[ Parent ]
Only if it could also be shown (0.00 / 0)
that eating gifted children raises one's IQ. Under such a scenario, I'd be for both. Otherwise, implausible hypotheticals tend to leave me cold.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton
[ Parent ]
My question is (4.00 / 1)
if it's true that labor gave in on the cady tax, in return for some sort of promise on EFCA, would a Brown win change that? Because it would seem to move EFCA legislation further into doubt...so would the unions then see the "deal" with the White House as irrelevant, and then push to defeat Obamacare?
Interesting thought... (0.00 / 0)
And yes, EFCA or anything like it is probably toast at the moment...  asssuming, of course, a Brown win.

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
I thought they gave in on the tax because of exemptions? (0.00 / 0)
I don't know if EFCA is actually dead, card check is, but I think it always was.  
[ Parent ]
Who'll be the 60th vote? (0.00 / 0)
Voinovich?  Unlikely... Snowe or Collins?  Not enough unions in Maine.

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
inhofe? (0.00 / 0)
crazy as shit. Coburn? just as crazy.

we could keep playing this game all morning long.

[ Parent ]
I guess Dawn Johnsen is screwed now too... (4.00 / 1)
Thanks Specter!
Lugar still supports her (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Brown won't... (0.00 / 0)
So, who would the 60th vote be?  Snowe or Colllins?  Man, it would be nice if Reid hadn't insulted Snowe so many times, recently... that's going to bite us in the ass big time now...

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
Reid insulted Snowe? (0.00 / 0)
Last I heard Snowe was being elevated to High Exalted Queen Bee of the Senate, before Lieberman stole the show with his Smug Douche act.
[ Parent ]
Reid snubbed her in the health care bill... (0.00 / 0)
...and then he said in an interview recently that working with her was a waste of time....

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
Lugar lol (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Didn't Specter say he'd now support her? (0.00 / 0)
Sorry, I'm not up on my latest Arlenism.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton
[ Parent ]
This is just terrible (4.00 / 2)
All those Big Pharm lobbyists who ponied up $10K+ per to become "hosts" of Coakley's sinking-ship fundraiser are going to get nothing for their money now.
Silver Lining (4.00 / 3)
I didn't expect to reach this point until November but maybe this is a good thing...we (the dems) weren't helping ourselves much with 60 votes. The optics of healthcare and Liberman, Nelson, Lincoln, etc has left the party is tatters. The left is furious. I have had a hard time imagining how we pivot out of healthcare with a smile on our face and fire in out belly. Nothing like a loss to facilitate hard decisions. At least with 59 votes populism will become vogue again. Obama tactics will change and I think we will see more anger, more campaign style rhetoric and more pandering to the progressive base.....  
New Massachusetts polling chart: Brown becomes a 2:1 favorite | 36 comments
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