According to a new MassLive.com/The Republican poll, likely voters in Western Massachusetts are supporting Warren, 61 percent to 33 percent.
Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate Elizabeth Warren talks to the media after casting her vote in the Massachusetts state primary election at the Graham & Parks School in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
Western Massachusetts voters are giving Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren her strongest edge in her fight to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown.
According to a new poll conducted by The Western New England University Polling Institute for MassLive.com/The Republican, likely voters in Western Massachusetts are supporting Warren 61 percent to 33 percent – a huge margin, given Warren’s six-point lead among likely voters overall.
Western Massachusetts is a small portion of the electorate. Tim Vercellotti, director of the Western New England Polling Institute, said Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden Counties contain 13 percent of the voting population. But it is heavily Democratic. In 2008, Democratic candidate Barack Obama beat Republican John McCain by 26 points statewide but 36 points in Western Massachusetts.
Brandon Charin, 38, a stock market trader from Longmeadow, said he plans to vote for Warren largely because he dislikes Republican policies. “It’s not really so much Warren versus Brown as it is Democrat versus Republican,” Charin said.
Boston and its suburbs are also a stronghold for Warren, favoring her 52 percent to 43 percent, the poll found.
Brown’s strongest region is Central Massachusetts, where voters favor him by a margin of 50 percent to 38 percent. The North and South Shores, which were grouped together in the poll, are more evenly split, giving Brown a two percent lead.
Vercellotti said the results are not surprising. Western Massachusetts and Greater Boston are the most Democratic regions of the state – though some Boston suburbs tend to be more conservative. Central Massachusetts is traditionally more conservative.
The poll of 545 registered voters was conducted Sept. 6-13 and has a margin of error of 4.2 percent. The sample of 444 likely voters has a margin of error of 4.6 percent.