So much so that I’m having trouble believing them. We now have another full day’s worth of polls, most of which were in the field at least partly during Obama’s visit, and – keeping in mind all the caveats I mentioned about polling a special election – they indicate that Scott Brown is poised to win this race. If so, it will be the biggest political upset of my lifetime.
First, let’s summarize today’s polls, including two that came since my last posting. The first is by Insider Advantage, and it has Brown up by 9%, 52%-43%, with Kennedy taking about 2% and no opinion polling 3%. The second is by ARG, and it has Brown up by 7%, 52%-45%. Four days ago ARG only had Brown up by 3%, 48%-45%, so Brown has picked up 4% in the last three days by this poll. Five of the last six polls now have Brown above 50%, with the only exception coming from the Daily Kos poll.
In parsing the details of these polls, there are some rather extraordinary results. Let me start with the InsiderAdvantage poll. In it, Brown is winning in all age groups except those over 65, with his biggest margin coming in the youngest, 18-29 year old cohort. He’s winning almost 25% of Democrats, and he’s beating Coakley among women (53% of the sample) by 49.5%-46.1% and is clobbering her among independents (37% of the sample) 68.7%-28.5%. Indeed, some of the results I find difficult to swallow, although in Insider’s defense, results for smaller subsamples can often be all over the map. Nonetheless, Insider would have one believe that Brown is winning 27% of the black vote and 77% of the Hispanic vote. I suppose it’s possible.
The ARG telephone poll of likely voters was in the field from Friday through Sunday and also has Brown dominating among independents 64%-32%, and winning 23% of Democrats. However, it shows Coakley with a slim lead among women, 50%-46%. Once again, Brown gets strong support with younger voters, leading 53%-43% among those under 50 and by a smaller 51%-46% advantage among those over 49 years old.
Both the InsiderAdvantage and ARG polls were, at least in part, in the field yesterday, and presumably should have picked up any surge toward Coakley inspired by Obama’s visit. All told there have been five polls that were at least partially in the field yesterday, and two that exclusively polled on the day of Obama’s visit. None show evidence of any surge toward Coakley – indeed, reaction has been in the opposite direction, toward Brown. I am not going to say that this reflects opposition to Obama, since these polls include days before Obama’s visit and even for Sunday’s polls the timing is in question. But clearly his visit hasn’t – yet – had the impact for which Coakley hoped.
So what are we left with? One can still construct an argument for Coakley winning this race, and indeed you can find that argument on other websites. It usually is based on a combination of extraordinary turnout by Democrats tomorrow combined with a response bias in the polling that leads them to collectively underestimate support for Coakley. For what it’s worth, I’ve made the argument that the response bias may work in the other direction, in Brown’s favor. Note that the InsideAdvantage poll was still another one using automated polling that gave Brown a larger than expected lead.
Let us assume for the moment that the survey data is correct, and that Brown is poised to pull off the biggest political upset in recent memory. The question becomes: why?
I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and – not surprisingly to long time readers – I don’t think the standard explanation posited in most major news outlets that this is a reaction to some combination of opposition to health care and to Obama is correct. Instead, I want in my next post to offer a different explanation for why Brown is winning. But before I do, I want to give you a chance to chime in. I know this election has attracted extraordinary interest, because I’m getting more hits today than on any previous topic, save for Election Night 2008. But most of you are giving me your views through private emails, rather than through the comments section. This leaves everyone else out of the discussion. So go ahead – tell me what you are hearing, or seeing, or reading that might explain why Scott Brown is on the verge of pulling the greatest upset since the Red Sox came from three down to beat the Evil Empire.
I was in Massachusetts all weekend…much of it in Wakefield where Scott Brown grew up and truthfully I didn’t see the kind of support that these polls are showing. The airwaves are completely saturated with ads, during one commercial break I saw 5 straight Martha Coakley ads and during the break they played 5 straight Scott Brown ads, but based on my observations, talking to people, and eavesdropping on the T, I don’t like Scott Brown’s chances nearly as much as these polls do.
Ok, Matt, here’s my interpretation, absent hard data. WRT data, I’d like to know two things:
1) Are the Democrats waning in Massachusetts because of a surge that is predominantly demography, issues, or personalities?
2) Is this a referendum on the state, or on the nation?
Because it’s an unforeseen upset, I’ll wager this is a referendum on Massachusetts politics. Tip O’Neill would be the first to agree — “All politics is local.”
On the other hand, if support has dipped substantially in safely gerrymandered districts like Barney Frank’s (a figure with a very visible national leadership profile), then it’s more likely a new national Zeitgeist.
I don’t recall voters having the warm fuzzies for Massachusets’ Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick and Democratic former Speaker DeMasi. Coakley is tied to the state political establishment, and Brown looks like an outsider.
This is for national office, of course. Not to put too fine a point on it, though, how favorable an impression did the late Ted Kennedy actually leave on voters at the end of his very, very long Senate tenure? He was a very well-positioned Senator in his day who brought a lot of money home to his state … but that was then. It’s certain that he’s still in voters’ thoughts this week. But there’s another issue that’s rarely far from voters’ minds. What have you done for me lately?
In that respect and many others, voters can’t be too complacent about the leadership vacuum that Ted Kennedy left. He’s not just a big suit to fill. He left a lot of heavy baggage too. The number of times we heard about his “extremism” suggests there’d always been an undercurrent of distrust to his style of leadership. Further, his Camelot lifestyle was, at root, totally out of step with the day-to-day frustrations of the Commonwealth’s voters — the private yachts, Martha’s Vineyard, Portuguese water dogs…. It didn’t help that Ted Kennedy wasn’t a vigorous presence in his later years, either. And he certainly let the electorate know in ’08 that it was time for the reins of leadership to pass to a new generation. Of course, these are just intangibles, and they’re divorced from the everyday business of governing. But I suspect they’ve reinforced the impression of Democratic Party complacency that Coakley did very, very little to combat.
Matt, I expect you’ll give us the facts, not just another good yarn, so back to you!
My first year out of Middlebury I was involved in the US Senate race for Durenberger’s open seat in Minnesota. That was 1994 and everything that year was written up in the context of Gingrich and the Contract for America. As if that race were just washed away in the tide of some bigger thing. But having spent that year on the ground in Minnesota, I was convinced that it had more to do with the personalities. Ann Wynia had coasted through the DFL nomination process, but had zero presence on the stump. This was only accentuated when Paul Wellstone went out there for her and reminded everyone how a stump speech was done. From a policy standpoint, it was hard to understand how Rod Grams might have serious appeal to mainstream Minnesotans, but when it came down to it, he was able to channel the Reagan-like sound bites and he came out on top. From what I have heard about Coakley, she is an equally lackluster campaigner and does not have the charisma to appeal to Joe Sixpack. Oh sorry, am I supposed to say Joe the Plumber now?