Brown favored for Kerry's Senate seat

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BOSTON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Scott Brown is favored to be elected in a special election if Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is appointed secretary of state, a poll of voters indicated.

In a poll of registered voters, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group, 58 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of Brown, R-Mass., if Kerry is appointed by President Barack Obama to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, WBUR-FM, Boston, reported.

Just 28 percent of respondents viewed the outgoing senator unfavorably.

MassINC pollster Steve Koczela said Brown fared better than four current or former Democratic members of Congress.

"We matched him up theoretically against (U.S. Reps.) Ed Markey, Mike Capuano, Steve Lynch and (former U.S. Rep.) Marty Meehan, and in each one of those cases, he led by between 17 and 19 points," Koczela said.

Politico said the lead over the potential Democrat candidates is in part due to low name recognition for the four; a majority of those polled said they either did not know who Markey, Capuano, Lynch or Meehan were, or they had no opinion of them.

The poll of 500 registered voters was conducted Dec. 17-18. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.