Pretty much confirms what I've been saying all along:
LINKLooking Closer at the Massachusetts Senate PollsBy Scott Rasmussen
Monday, January 11, 2010
(excerpt)
On the surface, three recent polls on the upcoming Massachusetts special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy seem to tell three different stories.
A Rasmussen Reports poll, released last week, shows Democrat Martha Coakley leading Republican challenger Scott Brown by nine points. Two new polls released over the weekend show wildly different toplines. A Boston Globe poll puts Coakley up by 17 points, while a survey by Public Policy Polling (PPP) finds Brown ahead by a single point.
As always, it’s important to look at what the polls have in common to learn the real lessons from the data. A closer look at all three shows a lot of common ground.
First, all three surveys show
Coakley right around the 50% mark. The Rasmussen poll has her right at 50%, while the Globe shows her three points higher and PPP three points lower. If Coakley is truly right around the 50% mark, then
the race is hers to lose, and Brown’s best possible scenario is a very narrow victory.
Second, all the polls show that
a lower turnout is better for Brown. In the Rasmussen poll, Coakley leads by nine overall, but Brown pulls to within two points among those who are certain to vote. In the Globe poll, Coakley leads by 17 overall, but among those who are “extremely interested†in the election, it’s 47% for Brown and 47% for Coakley.
PPP shows a toss-up but suggests it’s close because of low turnout among Democrats.Finally, the Globe poll and the Rasmussen poll show identical vote totals for candidates other than Coakley. The Rasmussen poll finds 41% for Brown and did not mention a third-party candidate by name. The Globe shows 36% for Brown and five percent (5%) for independent candidate Joe Kennedy. It’s interesting that both polls show 41% of the vote going to a candidate other than Coakley.
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Basically goes on to say that if this were a regular election, Brown would get smoked. So while a narrow margin is encouraging, we shouldn't read too much into it, particularly as far as predicting results in November.
