Warren secures spot on November ballot, avoiding primary

(CNN) - Democrat Elizabeth Warren won her party’s nomination Saturday for a U.S. Senate seat out of Massachusetts, avoiding a primary and advancing directly to the November general election against incumbent Sen. Scott Brown.

No Senate candidate has ever avoided such a vote in Democratic Party history, the party election committee said, a feat which requires receiving the support of more than 85% of state party convention delegates.

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Warren won nearly 96% of the delegates, the party reported.

A Harvard professor who was nominated by President Barack Obama to head a consumer protection agency, Warren overshadowed rival Marisa De Franco, an attorney.

In her convention remarks, Warren criticized Brown by calling him “a Wall Street Republican, a big oil Republican, a Mitt Romney Republican,” referring to the GOP presidential candidate, a former governor of Massachusetts.

Recent polls show a tight race between Warren and Brown, locked within the margin of error. A Boston Globe/University of New Hampshire poll published Saturday showed Brown at 39% and Warren at 37%. Another conducted by Western New England University for the Springfield Republican newspaper and released on Friday also showed a two-point margin, with Warren at 45% and Brown at 43%.

Brown was elected to the seat formerly held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in a 2010 special election.

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