Brown has a sizable lead in independent voters over Warren, the survey says. | AP Photos Poll: Brown leads Warren in Mass.

Sen. Scott Brown has pulled ahead of his likely Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, by 8 percentage points, a new poll finds.

If the Senate election between the Brown and Warren were held today, almost half of Massachusetts voters, 49 percent, said they would vote for the senator, while 41 percent would choose the Democrat, according to a Western New England University Polling Institute survey. Ten percent were undecided.


The majority of Democrats in the Bay State, 70 percent, said they would vote for Warren over Brown, but more than 2 in 10 Democrats, 22 percent, said they would choose the GOP incumbent.

Meanwhile, among Republicans in the state, the overwhelming majority, 94 percent, said they would vote for Brown over Warren, while only 4 percent said they would reach across the political aisle to pick Warren.

Brown was significantly more popular among independent voters, with 58 percent choosing him over Warren, while just 29 percent said they’d like to see the Democrat replace the first-term senator.

The Western New England University Polling Institute poll was conducted Feb. 23-March 1 among 527 Massachusetts registered voters, and has a margin of error of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.