Four Hours, Four Polls, Four Leads for Brown

I'm almost afraid to report it; at this point I am actually concerned about depressing the turnout - the Republican turnout, that is...

Ah, for the heady days when Martha Coakley had a 30 point lead....up in smoke, like Obama's promises...

I take the PJM polls with a grain of salt; they've shown the highest margins for Brown so far. The second PJM/CrossTarget poll, realeased a short while ago, shows Brown leading Coakley by 9.6% (51.9% to 42.3% with 5.7% undecided). For PJM, these actually represents a drop in Brown's momentum, as they had him up by as high as 15. But the 9.6% is significant, because...

....InsideMedford.com did a poll with the Merriman River Group, and came up with the following result:

Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 50.8% – 41.2% in the contest to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

So there's that pesky 9.6% number again. Hmmm....

Public Policy Polling, which vacillates from bulls-eye (New Jersey) to air-ball (NY-23) and is known to lean left, comes up with the following:

Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 51-46 in our final Massachusetts Senate poll, an advantage that is within the margin of error for the poll.

Over the last week Brown has continued his dominance with independents and increased his ability to win over Obama voters as Coakley's favorability numbers have declined into negative territory.

Those planning to turn out continue to be skeptical of the Democratic health care plan, saying they oppose it by a 48/40 margin.

I gotta believe PPP might be the closest to the mark here; in Jersey they had Christie over Corzine by 5% less than 48 hours before the election, they were criticized for what was perceived as "too wide" of a Christie margin, and finished the closest as the actual margin was Christie +4. Note that PPP made all the same "Corzine could still pull it out" excuses in their final Jersey poll as they do in the linked Brown-Coakley poll....

And for what it's worth - Intrade, which I actually tend to dismiss until election day itself, currently has Brown worth $65 to Coakley's $35. It has varied wildly all day, but Brown has held the lead regardless of margin. Expect it to continue to fluctuate...

Poor Martha...this was supposed to be so easy! I can see her little head spinning as she wipes her eyes and hopes against hope that the last three weeks have been just a dream, a horrible nightmare, and that she's gonna wake up any minute now with the 30 point lead still intact....