50 percent undecided in Mass. senate race

BOSTON, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Although the Massachusetts attorney general has a big lead, state residents remain unsettled about an upcoming U.S. Senate primary election, a poll indicates.

While Martha Coakley got the nod from 43 percent of those indicating a preference in next month's four-way Democratic Party primary election to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, 50 percent of those answering a Boston Globe poll remained undecided, the newspaper reported Sunday.

U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano finished second behind Coakley with the support of 22 percent of the likely voters, while Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca garnered 15 percent and City Year co-founder Alan Khazei polled 6 percent, the Globe said.

The undecided electorate will likely mean a volatile home stretch as the Dec. 8 primary approaches, said pollsters from the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire, which conducted the poll for the Globe. The results indicated that only 26 percent of respondents said they had definitely settled on whom they would support.

The poll was conducted Nov. 13-18 among 537 Massachusetts residents who say they are registered voters and have a history of voting in Democratic primaries. It carried a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.