Scott Brown Trails in Mass. Poll as Conservatives Defect

Thursday, 08 Dec 2011 06:19 PM
By Jim Meyers

While Republicans across the nation may be benefiting from an anti-Obama mood, one Republican senator may be in political trouble.

Obama Democrat Elizabeth Brown has opened up a 7 percentage point lead over Republican incumbent Scott Brown in the race for his U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts, a new poll reveals.

Scott has apparently failed to win over Bay state voters voters – while alienating many core conservative voters who helped elect him in 2010.

Warren, a prominent consumer activist and former official in President Barack Obama’s administration, received 49 percent of the vote in the University of Massachusetts at Lowell/Boston Herald survey released late on Wednesday, while Scott trailed with 42 percent.

The poll is the first to show Warren with a lead over Brown. The previous UMass survey in late September had Brown just slightly ahead, 41 percent to 38 percent.

Brown won a special election in January 2010 to complete the remainder of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s term, becoming the first Republican to represent Massachusetts in the Senate since 1972.

The 2012 Warren-Brown contest “could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate and the Democrats are making the race one of their top priorities,â€