Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat is at serious risk of being taken over by a Republican.

Nate Silver:

Earlier today I tweeted about how there wasn’t enough evidence to describe the Massachusetts special election as a “toss-up”, as some other forecasters have done, based on the information available to us at that time.

Well, now there’s some new evidence. And it isn’t good for Martha Coakley.

In particular, the evidence is a Suffolk University poll that shows the Republican, Scott Brown, ahead by 4 points, 50-46.

This would be unusually bad for the Democratic Party, and for the progressive agenda as a whole.  Putting aside the obvious symbolic shock this will create and the subsequent narrative, losing this seat could potentially impact health care reform, if the two chamber’s bills can’t be reconciled quickly.

This race will come down to turnout.  Dems outnumber Republicans 3-1 in Massachusetts.  We need to make sure that all those complacent, or even disaffected Dems make it to the polls.

Coakley’s ActBlue page is here.  You can volunteer on her website here.

It would be a terrible shame if health reform dies at the hand of Senator Kennedy’s own seat.