Elizabeth Warren's Home State Would Prefer Hillary Clinton For President

Most Massachusetts Democrats would choose former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over home-state Sen. Elizabeth Warren as a potential 2016 presidential nominee, according to a poll released Monday by Suffolk University and The Boston Herald.

Out of 400 likely Democratic voters, 55 percent backed Clinton, while only 17.25 percent said they would vote for Warren. Vice President Joe Biden came in third with 7.75 percent of the vote.

Twenty-seven percent of respondents listed Warren as a viable back-up option. A slightly larger number of respondents also expressed a more favorable opinion of Warren than Clinton -- 80.75 percent versus 76.75 percent, respectively.

The poll was conducted Aug. 21-24 and has a margin of error of 4.9 percent.

Unlike Clinton, Warren has yet to establish a national reputation comparable to that of the former first lady, who was favored as a Democratic nominee for president by 58 percent of voters in a national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in July.

Eight percent of respondents backed Warren, while 61 percent said they didn't know her well enough to form an opinion.

Warren, who has consistently stated that she is not running for the presidency, issued a letter to the Federal Election Commission on Friday formally disassociating herself from the "Ready for Warren" campaign, a progressive super PAC trying to draft her into a candidacy.

The letter, first reported by the Boston Globe, urges the group to focus its energies on regaining Democratic control of the U.S. Senate instead of confusing "donors about a non-existent run for president."

"This letter serves as a formal disavowal of the organization and its activity," Warren's attorney, Marc E. Elias, wrote to the FEC. "The senator has not, and does not, explicitly or implicitly, authorize, endorse, or otherwise approve of the organization's activities."