Poll: Brown, Warren race a dead heat

AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) - The race for U.S. Senate is at a dead heat, a new UMass poll shows, but Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren holds a wide lead here in Western Massachusetts.

The poll of 500 registered voters, released Thursday, found that Warren has a four-point lead over incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown, which is within the poll’s margin of error. “These numbers mean trouble for Scott Brown,” said UMass political scientist Brian Schaffner. “The race is at a dead heat and his support is well below 50 percent, which usually means difficulty for an incumbent, especially this far out from Election Day.”

While the numbers were tight statewide, Warren holds a 21-point lead in Western Massachusetts, which was a stronghold of Brown's then-opponent Martha Coakley in 2010 (Brown carried Hampden County, but lost by large margins in Berkshire, Franklin, and Hampshire counties). Warren also leads slightly in the Boston area, but Brown is well ahead in Central Massachusetts, and the poll found a statistical dead heat in Southeastern Massachusetts.

Brown maintains a wide lead among independent voters, but that may not be enough. Due to the strong Democratic advantage in Massachusetts, he must increase his share of undecided independent voters to win. Also troubling for Brown, the poll also found that voters who backed Brown in 2010 were more likely to switch to Warren, than those who voted for Coakley would be to switch to Brown.

A potential problem for Warren is that when respondents were asked to describe the candidates in a single word, the Democrat was most frequently labeled as "liberal" or "socialist," while Brown was most often described as "moderate."