Elizabeth Warren Ranked New England’s Second-Most Unpopular Senator

More than a quarter of voters said they don't know what to think of Ed Markey.

Photo via iStock/Kenneth Wiedemann

Photo via iStock/Kenneth Wiedemann

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has long been a polarizing figure in national politics. Beloved by Democrats for her outspokenness on progressive issues and loathed by war-whooping Howie Carr listeners, the former Harvard professor has embraced her new role as Hillary Clinton’s Twitter bulwark against “wannabe tyrant” Donald Trump.

According to a poll released Tuesday by Morning Consult, Warren has the second-highest disapproval rating of New England’s 12 U.S. senators. Only New Hampshire’s Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, with 37 expressing disapproval, had a worse score than Warren’s 33 percent. (Both Shaheen and Warren defeated Scott Brown, a Republican, in bitter Senate races in 2012 and 2014, respectively.)

While 10 percent of voters said they were unsure about Warren, 28 percent said they didn’t know what to think of her colleague, Sen. Ed Markey.

Warren and Markey’s approval scores, on the other hand, place them in good standing nationwide. Warren’s 57 percent was good enough to crack the top 25, while Markey’s 52 percent landed him in the upper half, at No. 46.

The most popular senator in America, according to Morning Consult’s poll, was Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, who was still challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination during the first half of the poll sample. The least popular was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The Massachusetts poll, conducted from May through September, surveyed 1,296 registered voters and reported a 3 percent margin of error.