Even internal polls of campaigns in MA all over the map
Jim Geraghty at Campaign Spot:
A weird evening. Within five minutes, two sources call, each one hearing through the grapevine the internals of one of the two major campaigns in Massachusetts.One tells me that the most recent internal poll of the Scott Brown campaign shows the Republican winning by . . . 11 percentage points. I'm getting the sense that the folks hearing this are almost a little incredulous, but it seems every demographic and key group is breaking to Brown in the past day or two. For weeks, Brown and everyone around him has said they will campaign and work as if they're 30 percentage points down. But it seems like the campaign has been one Coakley stumble after another, and you figure that would eventually start affecting the numbers. According to that measure, it's starting to break heavily in Brown's direction . . . but we'll have to see what the final few days bring.
The second source heard through the grapevine that the Martha Coakley campaign's internal poll shows the race . . . dead even. This would be more or less in line with a lot of the public polls (Rasmussen, PPP, Suffolk) and while a Republican would prefer to be ahead, has to like those odds with a furiously energized grassroots and bad weather coming next week.
The discrepancy is probably related to turnout models. Special elections are so dicey as far as predicting turnout and each pollster has their own ideas. Judging by what Jim is reporting, Coakley's pollster is probably including a higher percentage of Democrats turning out while the Brown guy is looking at more independents and Republicans.
Who's right? We'll find out Tuesday.