Elizabeth Warren’s position in the U.S. Senate is not guaranteed, a poll of 750 likely voters conducted on behalf of MassFiscal showed, according to the pollsters.
Asked to consider a theoretical matchup between the two-term senator and former Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, 41% of respondents said they would give Warren a third term, compared to 29% who would pick Polito. A full 30% were undecided.
“It really looks like Sen. Warren is potentially vulnerable for the right candidate and for the right message and it’s something that if I were in her camp I’d be a little bit concerned about,” Jim Eltringham of D.C.-based polling company Advantage Inc., said during a Thursday call with the press.
This is the second poll Mass Fiscal has called for where they’ve pitted the 74-year-old Democrat against a well-known Bay State Republican candidate, after conducting the same thought experiment using former Gov. Charlie Baker as foil in May. That poll, as theoretical as this one, showed Baker could potentially beat Warren by double digits.
Baker has not expressed an interest in the Senate race, nor has his former lieutenant governor. Paul Craney, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Foundation, said his organization had received no indication from Polito that she would seek to challenge Warren in 2024.
“It was out of curiosity more than anything else,” he said.
Warren announced she would seek a third term at the end of May, saying “there’s a lot more we’ve got to do.” The senator won her last election by wide margins, beating former state Rep. Geoff Diehl by 24 points.
Pollsters also asked respondents whether they favored some form of rent control, which the city of Boston is trying to convince the Legislature they should be allowed to implement in response to historically high rent costs.
When asked, “would you support a statewide rent control policy to prevent landlords from raising rents too much,” nearly 59% of respondents said they “support rent control.”
When asked the question a different way, this time phrased as “Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is pushing for a proposal in the legislature…would you support or oppose allowing Mayor Wu to reimpose rent control in Boston,” only 49% approved the policy.
When framed around the supposition rent control would result in “less investment in maintenance and upkeep of current rental units” or “resulted in fewer new multi-family housing units being constructed” support dropped to under a third of those surveyed.
Pollsters say they surveyed respondents they reached via cell phones and landlines between July 21 and July 22, and that the poll carries a margin of error of 3.6% with a 95% confidence level. More than half of those polled identified themselves as independent voters, while only 36% and 11% said they were Democrats or Republicans, respectively.