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There is huge news in Massachusetts, as a Rasmussen poll came out recently showing Martha Coakley leading 50-41.  This is much closer than anyone expected, and is firing up both sides.  However, this poll is complete BS.  Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight has 2 good posts on Rasmussen, one related to the Massachusetts poll specifically, and the other on how Scott Rasmussen has been a partisan pollster, working for the RNC and W.’s reelection campaign.  As he says, “if you take Rasmussen’s 9-point margin and add 4-5 points to it, which has been roughly the magnitude of their house effect thus far this year, that would imply a 13-14 point win [for Coakley].”  He also looks at some of the fishy numbers in this poll, including the low number of independents, despite the fact that independents are 51% of registered voters in the Commonwealth, and the fact that Coakley is polling at 21% among independents, but at 24% among Republicans.  Take a look at both of these posts for more in-depth analysis; I will not continue quoting them, as there is a lot to digest.

I have one addition to his criticism of the poll: independent candidate Joe Kennedy (the usual caveat: no relation to THOSE Kennedys) is not included in this poll.  Normally, it is OK to not poll third-party candidates.  However, Joe Kennedy has gained prominence, appeared in many of the debates, and will ultimately get stupidity votes from people who just vote for the name.  Furthermore, he will split the anti-Coakley vote, as his views are similar to Scott Brown’s and he has more tea party cred.  These factors combined mean that, even if Coakley is only polling at 50%, she will still win by 10+ points.

One last caveat (not a criticism of Rasmussen this time, but merely an observation from the primary): Coakley did slightly better than her poll numbers in the primary, and will probably beat them again.  And, if it is actually this close, we can expect to see some high level Democrats out in Massachusetts to campaign for her.