2012 Massachusetts Senate - Brown vs. Warren

Race Analysis

10/30/2012 -- Scott Brown hasn't crossed 48 percent in a poll since mid-September, and three of the four latest polls show Elizabeth Warren over 50 percent. There aren't likely enough crossover "Obama/Brown" voters to re-elect the incumbent.

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For years, Massachusetts was one of the most solidly Republican states in the nation. From the founding of the Republican Party through 1928, the state voted for only a single Democrat, in 1912, when the Progressive wing of the Republican Party split off to form a short-lived third party.  But as time passed and more and more Irish and other minorities moved to Boston, the Democrats' strength grew.  By the late 1800s Boston was a mostly Democratic city, by the 1930s the state was Democratic in national elections, and by the 1960s it was donkeys all the way down.

Today the Republican Party is now virtually extinct in the state legislature, and the state hasn't sent a Republican to the House of Representatives since 1996.  But in January 2010 the political world was shocked when an obscure state senator defeated Attorney General Martha Coakley in a special election to claim Ted Kennedy's seat by a five-point margin.  Coakley won the solidly liberal western portion of the state and Boston, but it wasn't enough to offset Scott Brown's margins in the suburbs.

Brown has cut a moderate profile in Congress, similar to that of Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine.  His approval ratings have remained relatively high.  But he faces a game challenge from law professor and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, who has enthralled the Democratic base and whose fundraising has been astronomical.  Brown has done most everything right for a Republican in the Bay State, but in a presidential year even that might not be enough.