I‘ve been told reliably that Martha Coakley’s internal poll for Thursday night showed her trailing Scott Brown by three points — 47 to 44 percent.
As I wrote yesterday, her internal poll on Wednesday night had her barely ahead, 46 to 44 percent. The appearance of continued Brown momentum meshes with the Suffolk University/WHDH poll released earlier today, which put Brown ahead 50-46 percent.
The last time a public poll showed a Republican leading a Massachusetts Senate race this close to the election was, well….never. There were no public polls released in the week leading up to the 1972 election, the last one won by a Republican (Ed Brooke, was re-elected in a landslide over John Droney). And since then, Democrats have enjoyed the stretch-run advantage in every Senate race in the state. The closest the GOP came was in 1996, when Bill Weld was within a few points of John Kerry just before Election Day; Weld lost that race by seven points.
