Morning Jolt has just been sent off for editing and processing. A preview:
Late last night, the Boston Herald reported that:
riding a wave of opposition to Democratic health-care reform, GOP upstart Scott Brown is leading in the U.S. Senate race, raising the odds of a historic upset that would reverberate all the way to the White House, a new poll shows. Although Brown’s 4-point lead over Democrat Martha Coakley is within the Suffolk University/7News survey’s margin of error, the underdog’s position at the top of the results stunned even pollster David Paleologos.
At first glance, I don’t see any glaring sampling errors or other issues to make us dubious of this result.
The poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday, surveyed 500 registered likely voters who knew the date of Tuesday’s election. It shows Brown leading all regions of the state except Suffolk County. And with 99 percent having made up their minds, voters may be hard to persuade. The poll surveyed a carefully partitioned electorate meant to match voter turnout: 39 percent Democrat, 15 percent Republican and 45 percent unenrolled.
Meanwhile, there’s another great gaffe from Coakley in heavily-Catholic Massachusetts, suggesting that nuns should not work in emergency rooms:
Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don’t want to do that.
Martha Coakley: No we have a separation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.
Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.
Martha Coakley: [. . . stammering] The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.