BOSTON â€" Representative Edward J. Markey’s lead over Gabriel Gomez, a Republican businessman and former member of the Navy SEALs, in the special Senate election in Massachusetts has slipped by 10 percentage points since May, according to a new poll, which suggests that Mr. Markey has lost support among women and independents.
The poll, by Suffolk University, shows Mr. Markey with 48 percent support and Mr. Gomez with 41 percent among likely voters - a difference within the poll’s margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The same poll in May showed Mr. Markey ahead by 17 percentage points. Some considered the May poll an outlier, as most other polls showed Mr. Markey with a smaller lead, though special elections are notoriously difficult in polling since turnout is so unpredictable.
The new poll found that support for Mr. Markey had flagged just as concern about President Obama’s handling of various controversies in Washington had grown. Mr. Obama is scheduled to campaign here for Mr. Markey on Wednesday.
David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk poll, said that since the White House controversies, “voters seem to be pulling back or pausing†on support for Mr. Markey’s candidacy.
Mr. Markey still leads Mr. Gomez among women, 47 percent to 31 percent, according to the poll. But his advantage among them has shrunk since May, when he was leading among women, 56 percent to 33 percent.
And the percentage of women who are undecided has risen sharply since May, to 21 percent, according to the poll.
At the same time, Mr. Gomez has strengthened his support among independents and now leads among them, 46 percent to 36 percent.
This could spell danger for Mr. Markey, given that his campaign is banking on support from female voters to compensate for his lack of support among independents. This is often the dynamic with Democrats in Massachusetts â€" Elizabeth Warren, for example, built a strong 20-percentage-point lead among women in her race in November, which made up for her deficit among independents.
But to win, a Republican needs at least 60 percent of independents, Mr. Paleologos said, and Mr. Gomez is still 14 percentage points shy of reaching that level.
The Markey campaign thought it gained ground among women last week after Mr. Gomez said he could vote for a Supreme Court nominee regardless of where the nominee stood on abortion rights. He also indicated that he could support a 24-hour waiting period before a woman could have an abortion.
While voters in the poll said by 2 to 1 that Mr. Markey, who strongly supports abortion rights, won the candidates’ first debate last week, only 21 percent of voters watched the debate in the first place. The Senate race, which has stirred considerably less interest than last year’s Senate race, has had to compete for attention among the news media with the marathon bombings, the criminal trial of James “Whitey†Bulger and the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The poll also showed that the controversies in Washington have taken a toll on views toward Mr. Obama even here in deep-blue Massachusetts, which voted for him last year over Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, by 61 percent to 31 percent.
Mr. Obama’s job approval rating is still relatively high at 57 percent, but that fell from 63 percent in May, according to the poll. His 67 percent personal favorability rating in May is down to 60 percent.
“While President Obama remains popular, he struggles to maintain the voters’ trust in the wake of the three controversies which have become national news since the May Suffolk poll,†Mr. Paleologos said.
Half of voters told the pollsters that they believed the Obama administration did not deliberately mislead the public regarding the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, but 43 percent said the administration did mislead the public.
And only half said they believed that the president was being truthful when he said he did not have prior knowledge that the I.R.S. was giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups.
Mr. Markey and Mr. Gomez are scheduled to debate Tuesday night in Springfield and meet in a third and final debate June 18 in Boston. The special election is June 25.
