New poll: Warren pulls ahead of Brown in Massachusetts

By Richard K. Barry

According to pollster Tim Vercellotti, commenting on Elizabeth Warren's 50% to 44% lead over Republican Sen. Scott Brown in a new poll conducted by the Western New England Polling Institute:

This may be not just due to her speech, but the overall enthusiasm Democrats have had coming out of their convention. The data shows that Democrats are more fired up right now than independents or Republicans. 

According to MassLive.com, one of the partners responsible for the poll:

The gap among registered voters is even larger, according to the survey, which concluded Warren leads 53 to 41 percent. The poll of 545 registered voters has a 4.2 percent margin of error, while the sample of 444 likely voters has a 4.6 percent margin of error.

Mr. Vercellotti also said that Warren's lead is attributable in part to the fact that she's firmed up support among Democrats to 89%, losing only 6% of her party's support to Brown.

Brown runs strong among those in his own party as well, but in Massachusetts there just aren't that many Republicans. As of August, 35% of the state's residents were registered Democrats and 11% Republicans, which is why Brown has been trying, and succeeding, in his bid to court independents. Still, that is not, for the moment, enough to overcome Warren's strength with Democrats.

It's too early to break out the bubbly, but these are good numbers for Warren in a race that has been tight for a long time.

As the pollster says:

When we poll again in the next couple of weeks, we will see if her numbers remain steady among Democrats, which may demonstrate that the party is unified under a continuing narrative that will carry on throughout the election season.

Maybe softening her supposedly too-tough image has helped, as I wrote a few days ago. Who knows?

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(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)