Democratic President Barack Obama holds a solid, 19-point lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Romney’s home state of Massachusetts, 55% Obama to 36% Romney, in a YouGov poll of 669 likely voters statewide (recontacted from an initial September poll).
| In Massachusetts (Oct 4-11): |
|---|
Partisan loyalty is fairly strong on both sides, with 91% of Democrats intending to vote Obama and 87% of Republicans intending to vote for Romney. |
Independents slightly favor Obama, 45%-41%. |
Women strongly favor Obama 60%-33%, while among men Obama is more narrowly ahead (48%-41%). |
Obama enjoys a huge lead over Romney in the Boston Area (76%-20%) as well as in Western Massachusetts (57%-34%). He also has a solid lead over Romney in the North Shore/Route 128 region (55%-36%), as well as in the Route 495/Industrial Belt region (49%-36%). |
Romney holds a lead over Obama in the South Shore/Cape Cod Region (53%-47%). |
The oldest voters age 65+ slightly favor Romney (46%-43%), while young voters overwhelmingly favor Obama (55%-31%). |
| Net Change in Voter Intention (Likely Voters) |
|---|
| Total | Independents | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sept 7-14 | Oct 4-11 | Sept 7-14 | Oct 4-11 | |
Barack Obama | 55% | 55% | 49% | 45% |
Mitt Romney | 39% | 36% | 43% | 41% |
In the state’s headline-grabbing U.S. Senate race, Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren has taken a lead of 7 points over incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown, 46%-39%. The race was dead-even in September (44%-44%) but it appears to have broken in Warren’s favor.
Likely voters in Massachusetts are primarily supporting Democratic congressional candidates, with 41% intending to vote for the Democratic candidate for the House in their district, and 23% intending to vote for the Republican candidate. A fairly large percentage (36%) say they are not sure whom they will support.
The poll was conducted online October 4-11, 2012.
Sampling method: Respondents were initially selected on September 7-14 from YouGov’s panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by age, gender, race, education, and region) was selected from the 2005–2007 American Community Study. Voter registration, turnout, religion, news interest, minor party identification, and non-placement on an ideology scale, were imputed from the 2008 Current Population Survey Registration and Voting supplement and the Pew Religion in American Life Survey. Matching respondents were selected from the YouGov panel, an opt-in Internet panel.
Respondents were recontacted on October 4-11 for the second wave of the YouGov poll. The percentage of likely voters who were successfully recontacted was 80.6%.
Weighting: The sample was weighted using propensity scores based on age, gender, race, education, news interest, voter registration, and non-placement on an ideology scale.
Number of respondents: 669 likely voters.
Margin of error ± 4.9% (adjusted for weighting).
Click here for September 7-14 results (registered voters).
Click here for October 4-11 results (likely voters).
