Massachusetts' Democratic Senate primary is shaping up to be a competitive one, according to a new poll of the race to decide who will replace Secretary of State John Kerry.
According to the WBUR/MassINC telephone survey, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) leads Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) 38 percent to 31 percent in the primary, with 26 percent of respondents still unsure about who they will vote for and 4 percent saying they'd vote for another candidate.
Markey held a 42 percent to 25 percent lead among registered Democrats in the survey, but Lynch held a lead among unenrolled voters who said they would vote in the Democratic primary (unenrolled voters in Massachusetts may vote in either primary).
Either Markey or Lynch would hold a lead in both a hypothetical matchup against a generic Republican candidate and against one possible contender for the Republican nomination, State Rep. Dan Winslow. But this early in the race and without a clear Republican candidate, more than a third of respondents said they don't know who they would vote for in the general election.
The new survey was conducted Feb. 11-13 among 498 registered voters in Massachusetts. The Democratic primary question was asked only of those who said that they would most likely to vote in that primary.
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