A source inside the Coakley campaign tells me her internals show her losing badly in Lowell and struggling in Worcester, too.
Brown has surged to a double-digit lead over Coakley in three Massachusetts communities identified as bellwethers, according to the latest SuffolkUniversitybellwether polling of the race for U.S. Senate.
Gardner, Fitchburg and Peabody all show solid margins for Brown, the state senator running against Coakley. The cities were identified as bellwether communities because in the most recent "like election" - the November 2006 Senate race between the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Republican challenger Kenneth Chase - the results in all three communities were within 1 percentage point of the actual statewide results for each candidate. Additionally, party registration in those cities is similar to the statewide voter makeup.
On Tuesday night watch for the returns from the major cities like Boston, Lowell, Springfield and Worcester. If she can't win 50% of the vote there she is toast.
