Mass. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is bringing in the cash

By Richard K. Barry

According to The Washington Post, former Obama administration official Elizabeth Warren raised $6.9 million the first quarter of 2012 in her contest with Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown. That's a lot of money, which about doubles what the incumbent brought in over the same period.

As the Post writes:

Even though Warren has been in the campaign for less than seven months, she has already raised $15.8 million and has about $11 million cash on hand. 

That’s still less than Brown, who raised $3.4 million in the first quarter and had $15 million in the bank as of March 31, but given how quickly Warren is raising money, she should close that gap by Election Day.

They also point out that, despite an agreement between the two candidates that discourages outside groups from taking part in their campaigns, their race promises to be the most expensive Senate race of the year and possibly the most expensive ever. 

That title belongs to the Hillary Clinton/Rick Lazio campaign in New York in 2000, when the two combined to raise and spent $70 million.

As for how the Warren/Brown match-up is going, at least according to the polls, a recent Boston Globe survey found the candidates pretty much in a dead heat.  As the Globe story states:

With a long seven months to go before Election Day, the survey shows Brown with 37 percent of the vote and Warren with 35 percent, while 26 percent said they are undecided. That amounts to a statistical tie, as the telephone poll of 544 randomly selected likely voters, taken March 21-27, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

And finally, as if this were not obvious:

“This is a wide open race,’’ said Andrew E. Smith, the director of the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center, which conducted the poll. “Both candidates are generally well liked. Unless something dramatic happens, this will go down to the wire.’’

The only other thing worth mentioning is how successful President Obama and Mitt Romney are going to be in bringing their supporters to the polls in Massachusetts - Romney's home state, on the one hand, and a traditionally liberal state, on the other. Down to the wire indeed.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)