MA-PPP: Warren leads by 5

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Outlier, lol. Junk poll!

Nice, but can we agree on the basic principle that of the two decent polls on this race recently, one has been Brown +5 and one Warren +5 so we should still be effectively treating it as a tossup?

Warren actually has a very good ground game, and though I'm not sure it's quite yet in the parts of the state that she needs to improve in (I'm thinking the Merrimack Valley here) that can be fairly easily remedied. Unless her strategy is to just drive turnout through the roof in ultra-Dem areas like rural western Massachusetts and the inner Boston suburbs, which could work but is somewhat riskier in conventional election strategy.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Nice. For whatever reason, there have been 2 or 3 polls in the past month that have shown Brown with a decent lead.

I just never believed that Brown could win again against a decent candidate like Warren.

Except she's not. I live in Ohio, not Massachusetts, but Warren is one of the least attractive, over-all worst 'rising stars' in all of modern-day American politics. As a pretty solid Republican (who did vote for Strickland over Kasich in 2010), I could easily see myself voting for Andrew Cuomo, or Brian Schweitzer. Never Elizabeth Warren. Unfortunately Warren can't be counted out, but hopefully Brown wins.

I think I'd probably give the House up before seeing Warren anywhere close to major elective office.

All right...are you sure you think the same way voters in Massachusetts do? Are you sure your distaste for Warren is in any way objective rather than a function of your political positions and her political positions? If so, why would you be sure about these things?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

However, Warren holds almost the exact opposite of my views on foreign policy and economic policy, and she has a sort of 'I'm right, you're wrong, go away' aura I've always found very distasteful.

Are you sure you're not talking about Jim DeMint?

Yeah, I mean, there are plenty of senators like that. Warren does sometimes come across that way but it's not as offensive to me, even compared to other people of her political ilk, because (and again, this too is entirely subjective) she seems to me more able to put things in comparatively graceful terms than most people with that sort of attitude.

I'm, shall we say, unconvinced that Brown is favored, since as realisticidealist pointed out demographics matter more than polling this far out, and it's hard to see how Brown replicates his 2010 performance in certain areas, but this is far from a done deal and there are certainly ways in which Warren needs to start campaigning better or more savvily if she is to win.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Key finding: among voters undecided in the senate race, Obama leads Romney 66-15.

Yeah, there's just no way that I can realistically see Brown winning in November.

How is that? He won just a couple of years ago. And I don't watch this board as closely as lots of people do, but he's been leading every other poll I've seen lately? I'd say he's favored.

Demographics tend to be more accurate than polls, especially this far out.

How is this a question of demographics? 

Partisan demographics are demographics too.

Hasn't changed that much since 2009 has it? Or do you mean differences in turnout?

Presumably he's anticipating turnout in certain Democratic areas such as the Merrimack Valley and South Coast to be higher than it was in early 2010, which I think is reasonable.