Mass. U.S. Senate Race Poll, Rasmussen Night of Last Debate: Brown within 2 Points of Coakley – Rasmussen not weighing Independents.

Rasmussen Reportsreleased a second poll on the Massachusetts Special Election on January 19th to fill the vacant Massachusetts Senate Seat. Coakley leads Brown by 2 points in this latest poll, with a margin of error plus or minus 3. In viewing the crosstabs, Brown leads by 2 points with those committed to vote in the election. Rasmussen’s article notes that independents in Massachustts are breaking towards Brown by 71%, which represents 51% of the electorate. This poll did include Independent Libertarian candidate Joe Kennedy, who is at 3% of the vote according to the latest sample. The crosstabs do not indicate the political affiliation of those polled by percentage. It is more likely that Kennedy will pick up as much as 6% of the total vote, with Brown picking up the majority of Independent Voters, Republicans and some Democrats, with the balance going to Coakley – a tight race can be anticipated, as of today.

As the poll was taken immediately following the release of negative attack ads by Coakley groups, it will be interesting to see what impact that has on the overall tone of the race. Negative ads do not appear to do well with the Massachusetts electorate. Additional polls can be expected towards the end of the week, which one expects, depending on the pollster and how closely those polled match the actual makeup of the electorate, to see the impact from that aspect of this campaign.
Brown, who raised over one million dollars on the day of the debate, did so through individual contributions, most of which came through Massachusetts. Coakley was in Washington at a DNC fundraiser – making this a battle of the people versus the beltway – with Brown leading the charge.

Additional notes on the poll: the “strongly approves” on the Obama’s performance are at 37% and Deval Patrick picks up 16% of the “strongly approves”. Those on the “fence” or somewhat approving of both Obama and Patrick are at 20 and 24% respectively. The strongly disapproves, in this alleged Democrat stronghold are telling: Obama 31% and Patrick at 38%.

Although most pundits continue to play it “safe” and assume that Coakley will ultimately take the seat, one has to understand they are doing so based on the past performance of the state electorate. Given the fact that the last Republican to win in Massachusetts was Mitt Romney, whose opponent, Democrat Shannon Obrien, used similar tactics to Coakley – the exception – Brown’s favorables have been consistently higher than Romney’s, perhaps due to both the opposition candidate and the short length of time for both to camping. One can hazard to guess (as polls are all over the place) if it does come down to a 2 to 5 point margin, it will be in Brown’s favor. This given the history of similar elections and with a similar make-up – not taking into account the hot-button issues of Health Care Reform and the Economy which are also drive votes to Brown.