A caller to WRKO, Boston's AM talk radio station, called in to say that 60 people were waiting in line for the polls to open in Wakefield.
There's the first evidence of the enthusiasm here on Election Day.
And....
Another caller just phoned in from North Andover to report that she's been waiting 20 minutes just to park her car so she can go inside to vote.
AP is reporting cars backed up for blocks.
I heard this and my first thought was that the town democrat committee are all ready encouraging each of the old codgers who belong and support Martha to take 15 or 20 minutes each in the voting booth. I’ve seen it done before.
This anecdotal evidence of high turnout could be bad for Brown....but possibly good if Coakley has pissed off enough people.
This is an interesting point that should be taken into consideration:
“If significant, correlated errors in the polling occur, it is most likely to be the result of response bias, owing to the substantially greater enthusiasm of Scott Brown voters, who may be more willing to answer a pollsters phone call after having been besieged by calls from both campaigns over the past several days. Some of the pollsters findings, like a mid-40s approval rating for Obama among likely voters, are hard to reconcile with the turnouts in New Jersey or Virginia, with evidence from national polling trends, or with anecdotal reports of potentially very high turnout. A variety of factors, ranging from the increasing use of IVR polls and short sampling periods, to the unusual partisan composition of the Massachusetts electorate (which is plurality independent), to the generally inexperienced polling firms which have surveyed the state, could make these effects more likely.”
Note....this analyst still believes Brown will win.
Hopefully this enthusiasm is for BROWN and not a last-minute surge for Coakley.