Is it really possible that the next Senator from Massachusetts...

... will be a Republican?

The Democrat (state Attorney General Martha Coakley) is still ahead (in the race to replace the dead Kennedy), but only by 9%, and her strongly favor/strongly disfavor ratio is terrible compared to the Republican (state Senator Scott Brown). It's a special election, and special elections depend more heavily on who happens to vote. If we assume it's the people with the strongest opinions, then that big disparity in the favorability ration is good news for Brown.

The election takes place on January 19th, and given this new poll, now that everyone's paying attention, there should be a lot of action in the next 2 weeks. Presumably, people will vote not just based on the individual, Coakley/Brown, but based on what they want to see the U.S. Senate do with the healthcare bill. That question is especially interesting because Massachusetts has actually experienced a similar sort of healthcare reform since 2006. Though liberals tend to support the reform, only 32% of Massachusetts voters think the state healthcare program has been a success. (36% call it a failure, and 32% didn't know.)

In short, it should be an interesting couple of weeks.