Brown Didn't Get Many Votes Because Of Health Care, According To Poll

The AFL-CIO has sponsored some health care polling from Hart Research, and it suggests somewhat plainly that Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts was not, in fact, propelled by opposition to the health care reform agenda being pursued by President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Brown didn't gain much support because of health care, explicitly, Hart writes in its memo of findings: "Those who knew Brown's position [on health care] were as likely to say it made them less likely (39%) to support him as to say it made them more likely to support him (41%)," the Hart firm writes, noting that 82 percent of voters knew Brown's position on health care.


But there was significant voter dissatisfaction with Wall Street: 61 percent said government recession policies have helped Wall Street and large banks "a lot" or "a fair amount," vs. 18 percent who said the same of average working people.

Hart surveyed 810 Massachusetts voters on Wednesday, the day after the election, for the poll, and it weighted its response pool to count more Brown voters (50 percent of the counted response pool) than Coakley voters (45 percent of the pool), given that Brown won. Margin of error was +/-3.8 percent.