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While other people who are much smarter than I am (e.g. Nate Silver) have done posts on this, I figure I’ll throw my own commentary out there, too.  As I’ve said before, the main thing between Scott Brown and the Senate seat is that Joe Kennedy is in the race.  They both have tea-party appeal, and Joe Kennedy steals from the furthest right elements of the base.  Nate Silver references the Joe Kennedy effect in his post, saying

“The Globe poll explicitly mentions the name of the third-party candidate, the libertarian Joe Kennedy, and gives him 5 percent of the vote. The Rasmussen poll does not mention him by name, but provides a choice for “some other candidate”, who gets 1 percent. And PPP does not provide for a third party option at all. You can make a case either way here; although Kennedy is participating in the debates and getting a bit more attention than usual, there’s also some history of polls overstating the margins that third-party candidates receive on Election Day.”

This Globe poll, by the way, is the one showing Coakley up by 15%.  I believe that it is the most accurate; as Joe Kennedy appears in this poll.  While many want to write him off, the fact is that his name is on the ballot.  And, it just so happens that his name is Kennedy.  And, he’s a tea party candidate.  These factors will combine to get him a small, but significant percentage of the anti-Coakley vote.  Scott Brown has a huge problem in that, while most Coakley voters are voting for her because of who she is, or because she’s a Democrat, etc., most of his voters are voting for him because he isn’t Martha Coakley.  Joe Kennedy stands to gain from this anti-Coakley sentiment at the polls; this is why he will take votes more from Brown than Coakley.  As such, the numbers will resemble those in the Globe poll.

Furthermore, the Rasmussen poll shows far too few Independents in its numbers, and the PPP poll shows Obama’s approval rating as below the national average.  These hint at a sample that does not represent the electorate.  The Globe poll appears to avoid these problems.

Just a quick guess on the final result: Coakley 52, Brown 41, Kennedy 7

Well, PPP released a poll showing Scott Brown ahead of Martha Coakley 48-47.  This is terrible news for Democrats.  This cannot be attributed to house effects, and it looks like Rasmussen was right.  Mea culpa.  However, this poll still has some issues, and Coakley will almost certainly still win

I do not doubt their polling numbers for Coakley.  Unfortunately, Coakley is a polarizing figure, and a lot of Democrats don’t like her.  Everyone else despises her.  She’s not a very good candidate, was only an OK AG, and only won the primary by running out the clock in a 4-way race against 3 others who hadn’t run statewide before.  That strategy won’t work in the general.  There is also the enthusiasm gap, as we saw in VA and NJ, which will hurt her more.

Then, why do I still think that she is almost guaranteed victory?  Simple.  While the lessons of VA and NJ are somewhat applicable  here, the race which this can best be compared to is NY-23.  This race is a 3-way race between a Democrat (Coakley), a Republican (Brown), and a tea party candidate (Joe Kennedy).  Current polling does not include Joe Kennedy, which is a major mistake, as he will be crucial to this race.  Many tea party members and other far right wing voters think that Scott Brown is too soft.  They prefer the hardline anti-government candidate Joe Kennedy.  While this is not a significant portion of MA voters, it is a significant enough amount of Brown’s base that Martha Coakley will still win.  The pollsters may be right.  She might just get 50% or less.  However, she will still win, in the same manner Bill Owens beat Doug Hoffman.  If it can be done in upstate New York, we can definitely do it in MA

The main reason Brown has support is not because people support him.  It is because people don’t like Coakley.  Many disillusioned Democrats and Independents will choose to vote for Joe Kennedy, who is on the ballot as an independent.  He also stands to gain from the fact that he shares his name with an incredibly popular former Congressman, who was a member of the actual Kennedy family.  These factors will cause a good portion of the protest vote to shift over to his side.  He will also get the vote of uninformed people who go in to vote, see that his name is Kennedy, and vote for him because of it.

Coakley will also pull in the big guns.  Bill Clinton will campaign for her, so will John Kerry.  More endorsements will trickle in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Obama or Biden out here.  These will fire up the Democratic base, and get them to rally behind a mediocre candidate like Coakley.  However, despite these endorsements, there is one person alone who is the biggest threat to Scott Brown.  That person is Joe Kennedy.