Massachusetts Senate Race Tightens. Is Obamacare The Cause?

A new Rasmussen poll out this morning shows that Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown (a member of the MA state Senate) trailing Democrat Martha Coakley (the state Attorney general) by only nine percentage points in the special election being held to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat:

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Coakley ahead of Brown 50% to 41%. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

The special Senate election will be held on January 19 and special elections typically feature low turnout. That’s one reason the race appears to be a bit closer than might typically be expected for a Senate race in Massachusetts. Kennedy carried 69% of the vote when he was reelected in 2006.

I think this is a far closer race an anyone had any reason to suspect, but this may be because of a grassroots effort by Republican, conservative, and Tea Party activists (not always the same folks) to try to make this race a referendum on the national health care rationing bill known as Obamacare.

I doubt Brown will score an upset victory even with Coakley rather arrogantly taking a vacation just before the election, but if he makes it relatively close, that may be seen as a prelude to the kind of treatment Democrats might expect from voters for their attempts to bully through a dangerously flawed and poorly understood bill.