A Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll released yesterday became the third survey in recent days to show Democrat Elizabeth Warren ahead in her US Senate showdown with incumbent Republican Scott Brown. Suffolk’s poll has Warren currently up by four points. A recent survey by Western New England University had Warren up by six, while one by Public Policy Polling had Warren up by two. Taken together, the polls show a serious swing in momentum away from Brown, who looked to be putting daylight between himself and a floundering Warren just weeks ago.
The new polls coincided, more or less, with Warren’s junking of an ad strategy that was giving local and national Democratic officials heartburn, and her decision to let locals with accents take the fight to Brown for her. But there looks to be another phenomenon at play in the poll numbers. It looks like Warren’s much-maligned strategy of tying Brown to Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Todd Akin and the national GOP actually did some damage.
The Public Policy poll is the one to look at here, because its two recent polls — one from August that had Brown up by 5, one from this week that had Warren up by 2 — are easy to compare side-by-side. Those polls show a pronounced rallying of the Democratic base behind Warren. Warren has consolidated her hold over self-identified Democrats, who are far more likely to cross over and vote Republican than their counterparts are to vote Democrat. Warren has increased her hold on the Democratic vote by 7 points in recent weeks. She’s also eating into Brown’s lead among independents, shaving 5 points off Brown’s take.
It now looks like Warren has been successful in her bid to nationalize the race among female voters, whom Warren badly needs to balance out the heated bromance between Brown and Bay State men. Warren’s camp has been hitting Brown with weeks of ads talking up alleged GOP antipathy toward women’s issues like equal pay, abortion choice, and Sen. Roy Blunt’s birth control gambit. The payoff: an 11-point bounce in Warren’s share of the female electorate in the latest Public Policy poll. Shaving 5 points off Brown’s lead among men, as Warren just did, is nice. But Warren absolutely has to run up big margins among women, and her poll numbers are finally heading in that direction.
When Warren’s favorable poll results started rolling in, the Phoenix’s David Bernstein noted that observers shouldn’t be surprised, since the Democratic and Republican national conventions had provided two solid weeks of reminders “of how much they loathe” the national GOP. UMass professor Maurice Cunningham takes up a similar theme, asking whether the national Republican Party is killing Scott Brown. Cunningham notes that Brown’s favorability numbers, and voters’ perception of Brown as an independent voice, actually moved in the senator’s direction, but voters still said they planned on abandoning him for a Democrat. He’s doing everything he can to distance himself from the national GOP, and right now it’s not enough. Which might finally make it safe for Boston Mayor Tom Menino to actually endorse the Democrats’ Senate candidate.
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
The state’s public health commissioner, John Auerbach, is resigning in the wake of the scandal involving the state lab that tests drug samples for criminal cases.
Alan Silvia has been declared the official winner of the Democratic primary in the 7th Bristol House district over incumbent Rep. Kevin Aguiar of Fall River by 26 votes. Aguiar says he is still mulling his options because of some “discrepancies” he claims were found in some of the absentee ballots.
An arbitrator rules that 10 jobs at the state’s Probation Department must be refilled because the original hires were brought in because of their political connections, the Globe reports.
The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy is seeking $5,000 fundraising commitments from potential new board members. The Legislature recently turned the nonprofit’s board of directors upside down, opening it up to neighborhood representatives at the same time the state is asking the parks group to ramp up its fundraising efforts.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua’s top aide, Patrick Blanchette, asks to exercise his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before a grand jury that has already indicted two other Lantigua aides, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
The Quincy Retirement Board has joined Brockton in a suit against the Oppenheimer equity fund over allegations the private investment firm misrepresented the value of its holdings.
Springfield must tweak its casino selection process after the state Gaming Commision expresses reservations.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
On the one year anniversary of the Occupy movement, Keller@Large concludes that its impact was minimal (though he’s still talking about it).
States want greater access to IRS data that they use to determine eligibility for Medicaid and health care subsidies but the federal government is resisting, Governing reports.
ELECTION 2012
The presidential race isn’t over for Mitt Romney, but it may be pretty close to that for our former governor after Mother Jones releases a video that catches him explaining to donors that “47 percent” of the country is comprised of government-program dependent “victims” who will never vote for him anyway. The candidate’s backpeddling isn’t helping, either. The video is crowding out Romney’s belated efforts to put some policy meat on the bone. Somewhere, Jimmy Carter is saying, “That’s my boy.” In the New York Times, David Brooks calls Romney a “kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not.” Even William Kristol at the Weekly Standard says Romney’s comments were “arrogant” and “stupid,” just like President Obama was four years ago. The Atlantic digs into some facts about Romney’s 47 percent, as is the magazine’s wont, and writes that the Republican nominee is really complaining about seniors and the very poor; in a dramatic twist, nine of the ten states with the greatest concentration of such citizens are Republican strongholds.
Wait, there’s more: Romney adds that peace isn’t possible in the Middle East and that the Palestinians don’t want peace, anyway. He also talks about Iran and says President Obama is “naive” about people like Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez.
Romney’s Super PAC makes big ad buys in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states the GOP lost in 2008.
Former Gov. Michael Dukakis called for the end of the Electoral College, saying a handful of swing states are wielding disproportionate influence because of it.
President Obama is currently on track to clobber Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
A plan to revamp the Boston Archdiocese reaches the desk of Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the AP reports (via WBUR).
EDUCATION
MCAS scores are up and the achievement gap between white students and their black and Hispanic counterparts has narrowed, though remains shockingly pronounced.
Two weeks into the start of school and the new healthy lunch regulations are getting mixed reviews from students around the country, Associated Press reports (via Herald News.)
TRANSPORTATION
The Globe reports that two top officials of the Atlanta transit system are the finalists to take the reins as general manager of the MBTA, which has been without a permanent chief executive for more than a year. Officials say the T chief will be paid more than his/her boss, but won’t say how much more.
The Berkshire Eagle “dreams” about rail service from New York City to the Berkshires.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
The “Shark Wranglers” TV show crew comes to Cape Cod to help state researchers track great white sharks.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The only survivor of a brutal 2010 Mattapan massacre that left four people dead, including a 2-year-old, now says he can identify one of the shooters. Marcus Heard previously testified that he couldn’t see the shooters clearly.
Lowell Sun columnist Peter Lucas decries the treatment of former House Speaker Sal DiMasi.
Bridgewater police detonated one soda bottle bomb after two others went off after they were tossed onto the front lawn of a private residence. There are no suspects.
Trinity Ambulance in Lowell agrees to a $350,000 settlement in connection with allegations that it improperly sought payments from the state, the Sun reports.
MEDIA
The Globe takes a look at the new glossy Boston Phoenix, a merger of the former alternative weekly and the slicker Stuff, a biweekly that focused on arts and culture, which will debut this week.
The Massachusetts Republican Party excludes a Globe reporter from a meeting in Worcester, the Globe reports. A Twitter exchange suggests the GOP thinks the reporter, Stephanie Ebbert, sides with Democrat Elizabeth Warren.
The Internet Archive collects every piece of news reported on 20 different TV channels over the last three years, the New York Times reports.
Bret Stephens, in the Wall Street Journal, provocatively asks why the Obama administration has no problem with a Broadway play making fun of Mormons but falls all over itself denouncing a film about Muslims.