Rep. Joe Kennedy leads Sen. Ed Markey, 35% to 26%, in a race between possible Democratic primary contenders for a Senate seat from Massachusetts, with the other three candidates at no higher than 1%, according to a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released on Sunday.
More than 36% of voters say they are undecided, with still more than a year to go before the September 2020 primary.
Kennedy, who has not thrown his hat into the ring, holds a 42% to 28% advantage over Markey in a theoretical head-to-head matchup, with 29% undecided.
Kennedy also leads in favorability rating over Markey, 73% to 59%.
The survey found that the 38-year-old Kennedy’s lead is in part due to his famous family, as well as the desire of some voters to bring a fresh, younger senator in in place of the 73-year-old Markey, who has been on Capitol Hill since 1976.
"To me, it flips on its head the normal incumbent-versus-challenger axiom," said poll director David Paleologos, who pointed out that it is usually the challenger who starts out behind in the polls and must convince undecided voters about why he is the better candidate. "Here, you have the opposite. If you're Ed Markey, you have to present a compelling reason to be returned to the Senate."
The poll was conducted from September 3-5 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
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