Elizabeth Warren Leads Scott Brown After First Senate Debate

Elizabeth Warren leads Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) 43 percent to 38 percent in the race for Brown's Senate seat, according to a poll released Sunday by the Boston Globe.

Warren, who spent Saturday trying to win over small-town Central Massachusetts voters, is considered the candidate who can best help working people, and those polled said she better understood people like them. Voters also said she was most likely to protect Medicare.

But she still faces a number of challenges. Brown leads her by double digits, 45 to 23, among independent voters in the Globe poll, and respondents considered him a stronger leader, more bipartisan, and, by more than 30 points, more likeable.

The Globe poll was taken between Sept. 21 and 27, the week after Warren and Brown met for their first debate. Sixty percent of voters said they didn't tune in, but 14 percent said Brown won, and 12 percent said Warren had. Eleven percent considered it a tie. The candidates will meet on stage for the second time Monday evening.

The poll was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, using live telephone interviews. It polled 502 likely voters, with a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Polling on the Massachussetts senate race has varied, with five of the 10 surveys taken since November showing Warren ahead, and two showing the race tied. Three polls, two by the Republican firm Kimball Political Consulting and one by UMass Lowell and the Boston Herald, showed Brown leading. The HuffPost Pollster trend chart, which combines all publicly available polling, shows the race remaining extremely tight, with Warren ahead by less than 1 percent.