Poll puts Scott Brown ahead of Elizabeth Warren in US Senate race

By Travis Andersen, Globe Staff

Republican US Senator Scott Brown now has a 9-point lead over Elizabeth Warren, his likely Democratic opponent in the November election, a new poll has found.

The Suffolk University/7News poll, which was released late Thursday night, asked 600 likely voters across Massachusetts which candidate they would support in a head-to-head matchup, if the election was held today. The poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.

Forty-nine percent of respondents said they would vote for Brown while 40 percent said they would back Warren, according to the poll.

Separately, 45 percent of respondents said that Brown deserved to be reelected, 39 percent said he did not, and 16 percent were undecided.

Brown also led Warren among independents in the poll by a margin of 60 percent to 28 percent, Suffolk University said in a statement. Fifty-two percent of registered voters in Massachusetts are independents, the statement said.

The favorable numbers for Brown — who stunned political observers in 2010 by winning a special election to fill the seat of the late senator Edward M. Kennedy — come after a University of Massachusetts Lowell/Boston Herald poll in December showed a 7-point lead for Warren, a consumer advocate and Harvard Law professor.

Earlier this week, a WBUR radio poll showed Warren with a 3-point edge over Brown.

In a statement Thursday night, Warren’s spokesman, Kyle Sullivan, shrugged off the results from the new Suffolk poll.

“We’ll let the political pundits debate the polls and watch them go up and down over the course of this campaign,” Sullivan said. “Elizabeth will keep working her heart out to talk to the people of Massachusetts about what she’ll do as their US Senator to help middle class families get ahead.”

A spokesman for the Brown campaign did not immediately return messages seeking comment late Thursday night.

Brown had a 52 percent favorability rating among respondents in the new Suffolk poll, compared to 35 percent who viewed Warren favorably.

Twenty-eight percent had a negative view of Brown, 17 percent were undecided, and just 3 percent had never heard of the incumbent.

Twenty-eight percent viewed her unfavorably in the Suffolk poll and 24 percent were undecided.

Asked for the first word or phrase that came to mind when they heard Brown’s name, the two most frequent responses were ‘‘Republican,’’ at 8 percent and ‘‘independent’’ at 4 percent.

Responses generating 2 percent each included ‘‘pick-up truck,’’ ‘‘moderate,’’ ‘‘dependable,’’ ‘‘good guy/good man,’’ ‘‘handsome,’’ ‘‘hard worker,’’ ‘‘honest,’’ ‘‘senator,’’ ‘‘deceiver/deceitful,’’ ‘‘politician,’’ and ‘‘doing a good job.’’

When the same was asked of Warren’s name, the most frequent responses were ‘‘intelligent,’’ at 5 percent, as well as ‘‘liberal’’ and ‘‘consumer advocate/protector,’’ both at 4 percent.

Warren’s 2 percent clusters on the same question were ‘‘Democrat,’’ ‘‘good,’’ ‘‘newcomer/fresh,’’ ‘‘progressive,’’ ‘‘don’t like her,’’ ‘‘unfavorable/undesirable,’’ ‘‘nothing,’’ and ‘‘strong/tough.’’

Also in the Suffolk poll, 43 percent described Brown as a leader in the Senate, 38 percent said he was a follower, and 20 percent were undecided on that point.

Respondents were also asked if they felt there was a benefit for the state to have one Republican and one Democrat, Senator John F. Kerry, representing Massachusetts in the upper chamber.

Sixty percent said yes, 36 percent said no, and 5 percent were undecided.

As for Warren, who has never held elective office but was tapped by President Obama to help create the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 40 percent of respondents said they felt she has the experience to serve in the Senate. Thirty-two percent said she did not and 28 percent were undecided.