This is officially a dead heat. The latest poll by PPP has the Republican in the lead.

Toss up in Massachusetts

Crosstabs here.

Martha finally started campaigning again this week. Stories about this being a dead heat will force the Dems to bring out the big guns and Obama will be making some pre-recorded phone calls to Dem voters. Martha by a mile on 1/19.

Edit: Martha just ran an ad during the Jets/Cincy game. The full court press is on and if they get desperate Barry can always fly up to Boston for lunch with Deval and Coakley to get out the vote.

lol Holy ****! at that poll.


Another story about what would happen if Brown wins:

For a republican, that guy's rhetoric isn't too bad.

I was hoping this race wouldn't be getting much more attention tbh as I knew Brown had a shot. Coakley supposedly has him outspent by a ton but there's been calls for folks to contribute to Browns campaign so not sure where he's at with the $ at this point. Brown is a very good candidate FWIW.

Seems unpossible but both candidates have been low profile - haven't seen much on the local news etc.

Carefully orchestrated stories of Democratic peril designed to boost turnout by party stalwarts

Brown is ~18% on Intrade. So, no, not really a "dead heat", but not the huge dog you'd expect either. A win would be extremely good for the GOP's narrative though, though I'm not sure how much material impact that actually has come November.

Special elections are funny things. Consider the special election in MA-05 in 2007. Despite a bad environment for the GOP and a D+8 CPVI, the Democrat only won by 6 points. (The next general election, she was unopposed).

Actually Brown is 30% on Intrade right now. Best Bid on Coakley is 76%.

lolaments. intrade has mass at 80 for the dem and 33 for the rep.... time to buy both imo

lol lowvoluments

Some traders kept hitting the Republican contract for 30% when they could have shorted the Democrat contract at 76% (basically 4% cheaper than the Republican contract)

I wish Intrade had conditional probability markets so we could divine the "narrative" effect. For example, "House seats gained conditional on Coakely winning" versus "House seats gained conditional on Brown winning". Although one problem is that the results of the election could also be somewhat of a bellwether in and of themselves, so ideally we'd have contracts that paid on House seats conditional on a very small Coakely or Brown win. If only Intrade had more volume.

Senate poll: Coakley up 15 points

http://twitter.com/TheFix

All about turnout.

Not unlike every other election.

Actually, all about the MO. And He seems to have the momentum thing going in his direction now. Turning around an electorate is like turning an ocean liner. Absent a major cooler scandal, it takes WEEKS, and is likely to continue moving in same direction this close to election.

It's true, never count God out imo. I still think He can take this thing down, but with Coaxley and Brown having campaigned for a while now, and with God's name not even on the ballot, I'm not sure mere momentum is going to do it.

He = Brown, in my post. Nothing metaphysical here.

Oh. In that case I don't think he has any momentum at all. The appearance of "momentum" is completely an artifact of how you poll the electorate and what you think the electorate will look like on the 19th. That's why you get one poll that says Coaxley +15 today while another says Brown +1. It's not that hordes of people have changed their minds, it's that one polling firm is guessing the electorate is going to look a certain way, while another polling firm is guessing it's going to look different.

Momentum is NOT comparing two polls on the same day. It is comparing the trend of all polls over several weeks or months, and the trend here is Coaxley trending down and Brown trending UP.

And sometimes, as in this case, there is a trend that supercedes the "likability" of the individual candidates. That trend is that the voters are overall negative to Democratic policies and tactics. If Coaxley loses Ted Kennedy's seat, it will be because of the anti-Democrat backlash overtaking the personalities of Coaxley and Brown.

And if Brown gets within 10, it will... also show that Massachusetts voters hate Obama, and omfg lol @ getting that close with the seat of the GREAT LIBERAL LION. Like, the seat is a vvvv well made seat for socialist policies, made out of liberal feathers and upholstered with crushed acorns and stuff, so obviously it's ridiculous that a Republican should think he could get close to being able to sit in that seat, but he did! Wow, what a referendum on Barry in the White House.

And if Brown loses by 30, well ROFL, who ever thought a Republican could take a seat in Massachusetts anyway? Joke's on you, Democrats! I'm pretty sure Ted Kennedy posthumously rigged the election and sent Ted Sorenson, Arthur Schlesinger, and the formaldehyde-pumped body of Mary Jo Kopechne to wait outside polling stations screaming about how in Robert Bork's America, everything will suck real bad. Plus word has it that John Fund has an amazing scoop about how Winnie the Pooh was registered to vote! LOL Democrats!

On to Rubio!

Liberal Self Loathing ITT

I don't really follow politics in this way, but, isn't all this exactly right? Wouldn't it be pretty amazing for a republican to win a senate seat in one of the most liberal states in the union? And if he doesn't come close, that would be pretty much expected?

Obama 61.80%

McCain 35.99%

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Kerry 61.9%

Bush 36.8%

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Gore 59.9%

Bush 32.5%

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These seem to be good benchmarks for what the vote margin should be in Massachusetts.