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Research 2000 Poll: Coakley And Brown Tied 48%-48%

Eric Kleefeld | January 18, 2010, 12:48PM

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MA Senate Candidates AG Martha Coakley (D) and State Sen. Scott Brown (R)

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The new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll of the Massachusetts special Senate election has the race as a tie between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown -- the best independent poll result that Coakley has had in the last few days.

A Research 2000 poll from last week, which was commissioned by the local liberal blog Blue Mass Group, had Coakley with a stronger lead of 49%-41%.

Daily Kos's Laura Clawson writes: "As we keep saying, this one comes down to GOTV."

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Recommend Recommend (1)

January 18, 2010 1:04 PM

This poll has only 9% of dems defecting to Brown as opposed to the consensus of ~20% in other polls... That's a significant difference and is not very comforting...

Rain and snow tomorrow... The Globe says that keeps indies home but doesn't stop the Dem machine in the state... the weather might just be heaven sent!

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January 18, 2010 1:07 PM

If Health Care goes off the rails and leads to a Republican rally, the inevitable comparisons will be to Clinton in 1992. But I see this as a potential turning point in Obama's gradual transformation into Jimmy Carter. It's easy to forget, but Carter was also elected as a transformational figure: an honest, competent, liberal governor to take over and clean out the horrible legacy of the previous decade (sound familiar?). And within 2 years Republican activists succeeded in recasting him as an incompetent idealist, who couldn't get things done and wanted to force the metric system on ya. Make no mistake, Obama's in trouble if Coakley loses this election, because there's nothing that sinks as fast as a reformer who doesn't reform.

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January 18, 2010 1:15 PM in reply to jwr12

Were you alive when JC was President. I was. I was there working both on his campaign and in the United States Senate

Horseshit

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January 18, 2010 3:15 PM in reply to JohnMcCSF

I was indeed very much alive when Jimmy Carter ran his "an honest man can be president" shtick all the way to the whitehouse -- and to this day think extremely highly of Carter. I think he was maligned, both by the Republicans, and by history. That said, I don't see how it's "horseshit" to say that he was politically outmaneuvered and sent into history's dustbin (as a president, at least) by conservative activists who seized upon any and all weaknesses to turn his image from that of an outsider / post-Watergate reformer into that of an ineffectual idealist beholden to pencil-neck elites. That would seem to me to be fact. And Obama is trending that way, not least because he's played too nice with his enemies and been too distant to his friends. What did 10 months of reaching out get him? What has nominating an insider candidate who forgot to run gotten him? It's not true that nice guys finish last; but in politics, at least, it's often true that they're dumped first.

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January 18, 2010 1:12 PM

R2K has a pro-Dem house effect as most of you know

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January 18, 2010 1:18 PM

GOTV - Sargent reports that Brown has engaged a temp agency to supply his field operation

That's a first..I've never heard of such a thing

“Workers will be supporting candidate Scott Brown (Republican) by handing out pro-Brown literature or asking people to vote for him. Workers do not need to be Republican. However, they must perform the job of supporting Scott Brown.”

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/senate-republicans/brown-campaign-hiring-scores-of-paid-temp-workers-to-get-out-vote-agency-says/

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January 18, 2010 1:18 PM

What a surprise. Let's trumpet the one poll that doesn't have Brown leading.

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January 18, 2010 2:25 PM in reply to masanf

If you guys lost NY-23, what makes you think that you are going to win here if a procrastinator candidate can still be competitive?

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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve

January 18, 2010 2:54 PM in reply to masanf

Jesus, talk about selective perception.

They've trumpeted every poll as pretty much identical volume levels, including the two highly suspect alleged polls sponsored by Pajamas Media and allegedly taken by a Republican P.R. and "communications" firm that show Brown way out in front. They took a lot of flack from liberal commenters for hyping the Pajamas polls to the point that Josh dove into the comments.

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January 18, 2010 1:31 PM

One other thing I want to get off my chest (following off of my "Carter" comment, above): although I'll be sad to see HCR go down, if this happens, and would never want this to happen, it won't be without at least one good silver lining: namely, the realization by Washington insiders that they can't take progressive enthusiasm for granted. I'm no Naderite; I'd pick Obama, Gore -- hell, Evan Bayh -- over Bush in a heartbeat; but no matter how you slice it, progressives have been getting "talk to the hand!" from the 3 dimensional chess players in the white house ever since the inauguration. Enthusiasm matters, and if Coakley loses because no one could get excited about defending the current HC bill -- which at several points seemed almost designed to humiliate progressives -- well, as a progressive, I refuse to take the blame for that. It's not just the threat of a third party that matters, in other words; it's the threat of not respecting the political powers that got you there. This one is on the machine.

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January 18, 2010 2:00 PM in reply to jwr12

Very well said.

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rb6

January 18, 2010 2:09 PM in reply to jwr12

Yes, I have to agree with this. A "fixer" like Rahm Emmanuel almost always has his eyes focused inward, not outward, and it is showing pretty obviously.

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rwc

January 18, 2010 2:54 PM in reply to jwr12

I agree,but also note, the result every time -- and my time starts back with LBJ when I was in high school and paying attention for the first time -- is Republican rule. Yea, the Dems who ignore their progressive base get beat, but it us, the progressives and the country as a whole, that suffer. The Dems just "learn" the lesson that they have to be even more conservative to win. And they are part of the elite so they don't suffer.

Back then, under first Nixon and then the Reagan/Bush years, my thought was the country has to see pure Republican rule to understand what it means and learn its lesson. Nixon had a Dem congress, so no lessons learned, but Reagan had the Senate for a while and then finally Bush 2 had the whole shebang, and it seemed maybe the nation learned something but the Dems appeared to have already "blown" that. Of course, they're only blown it if they really did have progressive beliefs, a proposition that seems doubtful for at least half of them.
My Marxist neighbor, who's a good decade older than I, has always dismissed my hopes for progressive change through the Democrats. He says nothing is going to change until things get much worse. I'm begining to think he's right. Of course, even under such dire circumstances, I pointed out, given the baseline attitudes of so many Americans, who's to say the nation would turn to the left and not the fascist right? No guarantees at all, he agrees.

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January 18, 2010 5:28 PM in reply to rwc

I agree with your neighbor. My support of Obama will be the last time I work for a Dem. I've been an independent for years but I'm done supporting Dems. The quicker we hit this bottom we are plummeting toward, the quicker we can right the ship.

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January 19, 2010 7:42 AM in reply to rwc

Based on the tone of the new populism and the inability of Obama and the Dems to counter or co-opt it, I fear that an extreme right turn is possible.

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notthatstupid

January 18, 2010 3:51 PM in reply to jwr12

No, this one is on the people, including some in my family who may just die before HCR is resurrected again. But thanks for playing politics with their lives. I'll be sure to mention you in the memorial programs...

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January 18, 2010 5:30 PM in reply to notthatstupid

Reconciliation. Also, the Senate bill can be passed through the House as is.

But people don't like the bill, so to blame them for stopping it is ridiculous.

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January 19, 2010 12:01 AM in reply to notthatstupid

Well, of course, by saying "this one is on the machine" I didn't mean the machine will suffer. I meant it's the machine's fault. People will suffer. But not because of anything progressives did. This isn't like 2000, where Nader's votes clearly cost Gore the election. Here, the problem is simply that the Democratic powers stopped courting progressive voters starting in January, and then had a come to Jesus moment 3 days ago. Well, it could be too late. Hopefully it's not. But if it is, then your family has two consolations, such as they are. The first is that whatever the Obama group had decided to give them, well that's still pretty much intact. As Greenwald and others have shown, the Senate bill is what the Democratic establishment was willing to offer the American people, and that bill can still be ratified (by the House). That's cold comfort if you think that the Senate bill is actually a signed bill of receipt for the sale of most Americans to the insurance lobby. That brings us to comfort number two: maybe if the Obama group wants to continue to have power, they'll start trying to govern in ways that actually appeal to the people who put them there. As has been said elsewhere, Bush governed as if he had a mandate, even when he clearly didn't; whereas Obama's administration has spurned its mandate to pussy foot around the big issues. Well, it's time to lead or move over. The time for group hugs is over.

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January 18, 2010 4:19 PM in reply to jwr12

progressives have been getting "talk to the hand!" from the 3 dimensional chess players in the white house ever since FDR.

Fixed that for ya.

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January 18, 2010 1:42 PM

I can hear the little feet of "recount" lawyers heading to Boston. Franken-Coleman redux.

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January 18, 2010 1:56 PM

Coakley will win by a large margin.

What the many 'polls' don't take into account is the large and growing number of active voters 18-30 y/o with only a cell phone, and who are not at home sitting by their phone, who are excluded from the polling. This is vastly a progressive Democratic group of individuals. We learned this from the Presidential elections.

But I do think it's sad that so many people are not willing to take a stand on their political position, either Democrat or Republican.

But instead, they choose to stand on the side lines as an 'Independent' in the 'complainers box' so that they can complain about either side and take no responsibility for anything, since Independents will never be in power at any local, state or national level.

GO COAKLEY!!!

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rb6

January 18, 2010 2:08 PM in reply to Bloggin

We've been hearing this for two election cycles now, at least since 2004, and maybe someday it will be true, but it hasn't been true so far.

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January 18, 2010 2:10 PM in reply to Bloggin

I'm pretty sure most pollsters these days either include cell phone only users in their polling, or compensate for it in their models.

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January 18, 2010 5:18 PM in reply to bdj428

I got a call to my mobile phone this morning.
I'm registered in MA-7, the number is from MA-2.
Robo-call, 3(IIRC) questions about the Senate race, and a couple others - on international issues.*

(If I am right, someone involved in funding the polling wants to see DDT used in Africa. There's a couple moving parts in that issues ...)

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PercyDovetonsils

January 18, 2010 2:00 PM

And the real winner is.....(DRUMROLL).....Diebold! The fix is in, folks, he'll win by a weird margin, just like Dumbya did in Ohio. Time to un-Tivo your channel news for a week or so and go watch Brady Bunch reruns on TVLand, it ain't gonna be pretty!

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The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve

January 18, 2010 3:15 PM in reply to PercyDovetonsils

Ah yes, what would a close election be without a Diebold Truther comment.

So, let me see if I can follow your reasoning. In a deep Blue state run by some of the most hardbitten, cynical Democratic pols in the nation, they're using voting machines that will skew the vote Republican and don't know it?

How's that gonna work? Do the Republicans have a secret command center set up in one of Dick Cheney's hidden bunkers where they control these things remotely? Karl Rove shows up in a Mao jacket and a frou-frou cat, pushes a big red button and, zap, a signal goes out over the Verizon network (must be Verizon, because they'd lose about half the machines in dead zones if they used AT&T) that changes the vote totals automagically?

Or is it simply a hidden feature in the software that's left over from the days before 2006 when they still ran things that does it without further human invervention? If so, then it's a real shame that Massachusetts doesn't have any world class engineering schools or world class universities with world class political science and government programs full of brilliant grad students who'd have the time, talent and inclination to unravel something like that.

Whether intentional or not (and I think not) voting machine paranoia tales are just as much a part of the Republican vote suppression dirty tricks as "caging."

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PercyDovetonsils

January 18, 2010 4:22 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve

Well, Sweetie -- Looks like I hit a nerve! My bad. I was just repeating stuff I read on the net (I think it was on Raw Story.) I am certainly not the expert on all things voting machines as you seem to be, but I do believe that Diebold is beholden to the Rethugs, not the smart technocrats of MA. I hope I'm wrong.

Coakley! Vote early, vote often!!!!!!!

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Scott in PacNW

January 18, 2010 5:19 PM in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve

'Hard bitten and cynical' doesn't make them infallible. Take nothing for granted.

I'll take Cal Tech and MIT's opinion over most other opinions on this topic.

I'd also pay attention to Bev Harris at http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

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January 18, 2010 2:02 PM

I agree. This race could be tied up in court for months.

As far as Obama being compared to Carter, I also was there in the Carter days and Carter's main problem was that he severely lacked personal appeal, especially to the youth and independents. That's why trying to compare Carter to Obama is a Republican fantasy. It's the same as comparing Reagan to boring Bush Sr.

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January 18, 2010 4:36 PM in reply to Debra

I agree. This race could be tied up in court for months.

I don't know if that would be such a big issue. With Kirk sitting in as a interim Senator, delay doesn't hurt the Dems and doesn't help the Republicans.

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eratosthenes8

January 18, 2010 2:12 PM

At this point, I'd be shocked to see Coakley eke out a win...thrilled, but shocked. The Democrats sat on their hands in this election.

As for the comparisons between Carter and Obama, I think they're quite apt. Both tried to govern based on personal appeal. In Carter's case, that appeal was honesty. Unfortunately, that kind of personal charm isn't enough to sell one's policy program to the egomaniacs that fill the House and Senate. And ultimately, the voters take notice of the gap between a politician's promise and his achievements. And they tend to choose political competence over personal virtue (see Bill Clinton).

Carter found that out the hard way. Obama seems to be finding it out now.

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rwc

January 18, 2010 3:08 PM in reply to eratosthenes8

Actually my recall was Carter - who has become something of a liberal hero in his retirement years, long after he was president -- was actually the start of the DLC, conservadems strain of the party.

Why do you think Kennedy ran against him and had such strong support. It wasn't only because of ego, there were politics involved.

One thing I still remember clearly,something that really hurt him and yet was brave of Kennedy to say, was his comments about the Iran hostage situation and how America had helped bring it on itself by installing and supporting the repressive Shah. He was crucified by Carter on that in a very jingoistic way. (Of course, somehow Reagan and his minions were able to cut a deal with the Iranians and never be called to account for what was essentially treason.)

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January 18, 2010 3:38 PM in reply to rwc

Thanks, rwc. I'm glad someone else remembers that little bit of treason.

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January 18, 2010 4:00 PM in reply to rwc

I agree with the comment that Carter comparisons are a Republican masturbatory fantasy. In fact, the American economy has done far better under Democratic presidents in recent decades. Carter's 'miserable' four years look like heaven compared to the burnt hellscape under GWB.

Obama is a superb politician, in a far more partisan political environment and a congress and opposition that is very hard to deal with. Seriously, you need to get major league assholes like Snowe and Lieberman to approve stuff. It's like in the Olympics where you have to judge acknowledging the level of difficulty. Getting a historical health care reform bill thru this congress is no joke. (LBJ gave up on it, and he had like 68 Senators. (Result of his giving up was Medicare))

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The Other Ed

January 18, 2010 2:19 PM

Brown's hope was for a low turnout but I just got through calling 30 Democrats in my precinct here in Watertown MA and I do think that the enthusiasm level for Coakley has soared. Every single one of the people I reached was up, aware of the stakes and will turnout tomorrow.

I'm much more optimistic.

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btbradley86

January 18, 2010 2:22 PM

WOW TPM, another day and another 5 stories on random polls. Is there nothing else going on in the world?

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January 18, 2010 2:27 PM

relax kids. coakley is going to win .

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January 18, 2010 3:46 PM in reply to Lalo35adm

Clever. You, sir, are simply trying to encourage complacency. If there's a time to panic, and usually there's not, it's now.

GOTV!

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bluestatedon

January 18, 2010 2:59 PM

I'm skeptical that at the end of the day the citizens of Massachusetts are going to elect as the replacement for Teddy Kennedy a Republican whose main notable accomplishment is posing in the nude for a stupid, vapid magazine 25 years ago. If they do elect Brown, then it will go down as one of the most ridiculously improbable upsets in American political history, and one of the most glaring examples of political campaign incompetence of almost criminal dimension.

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January 18, 2010 3:12 PM

Why has Coakley not plastered the media with:
"The Centerfold Senator" and pictures of Brown in his nude pose for a gay men's magazine? Fear of the backlash, being called anti-gay? Small change for saving her sinking campaign. Whatever gay voter it cost her would be made up by conservative votes it got her. Why hasn't she done anything? Was she a repub plant? Doubt it, but why is she the molasses candidate?

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January 18, 2010 4:01 PM in reply to Prefabfan

Do you really think that this picture hasn't been seen in MA? Really?

Here's a little fact for you: Brown is polling significantly higher among women than the average MA Republican. In fact, he's very close to Coakley (a woman) among women. Do you think that picture might have something to do with that?

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January 18, 2010 4:57 PM in reply to Prefabfan

Nobody cares, or should, that he posed nude for a magazine years ago. What should be important, is that he is proposing opposition to current Democratic initiatives working through Congress, and is proposing fiscal policies that are a return to the Bush years. Proposing as a solution to current economic problems, the very policies that dug us into this hole, are not what I can even accept from a candidate, much less support.

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January 18, 2010 3:45 PM

Scott Brown = American Idol candidate.

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PatrickJKiger

January 18, 2010 3:58 PM

I remember that back in 2006, the Republicans had another exciting, charismatic Brown-like senate candidate in Maryland by the name of Steele, who rode a wave of media- and poll-generated momentum into election day against an ineffectual,inarticulate campaigner named Ben Cardin. Like Brown, Steele's whole appeal was a revolt against Democratic dominance of Maryland. Steele ended up losing by 10 points.

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January 18, 2010 5:00 PM

No, Steele was behind in the polls going into election day.

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January 18, 2010 6:53 PM

If this poll is the most accurate one, then I think Coakley wins by about 5 points.

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January 18, 2010 11:12 PM

Like Minnesota, we'll see 'em in court.

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