Casey Leads Sen. Santorum in Pa. Poll

[Omaha Steve]

Full story: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060806/D8JB52J00.html

Casey Leads Sen. Santorum in Pa. Poll
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Aug 6, 4:30 PM (ET)

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - The latest independent statewide poll shows Democratic challenger Bob Casey with a slight lead over Republican incumbent Rick Santorum in their hotly contested Senate race.

The poll found 45 percent of the voters questioned supported Casey, the state treasurer, while 39 percent supported Santorum, the No. 3 Senate Republican.

The poll of 550 registered voters was conducted from July 31 to Aug. 3 by The Morning Call of Allentown and the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. The poll results carry a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

[WindRavenX]

1. listen, I know getting Rick out is great...

...but next time don't field an anti-choice challenger.

Just sayin'.

[rodeodance]

7. i agree whole heartedly!

[femmocrat]

2. Does this mean that Ricky has narrowed Casey's lead?

Casey was ahead by double digits just a couple of weeks ago. BTW, the story of the bogus petitions for the Green candidate appeared in (well, way in) our right wing rag, The Tribune-Review today! Surprise!

[AlinPA]

3. Casey is a weak campaigner; he will wait until late and then use very

negative ads; that will turn off voters and just as with the primary with Rendell, lose it. Meanwhile Santorum is smoking the TV with impressive ads aimed at terrorism/oil independence/illegal immigration. Pisses me off.

[TheFarseer]

4. Casey looks like he's blowing it to me

I've heard PA'ers say Santorum is running good ads and Casey is doing absolutely nothing. I can't stand the thought of that crazy bitch winning, but it's looking worse and worse in PA.

[LetsGoMurphys]

5. He doesnt have as much money as Santorum

his ad campaign is going to have to wait for another week or 2 before stepping it up.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

6. Reality check: Santorum STUCK at 39% despite $5mil in ads

From Keystone politics:

Muhlenberg Poll: Casey 45, Santorum 39; Rendell 51, Swann 35

Our friend, John Micek, is trying hard to paint this as positive news for Santorum, but the real fact is this is just another poll that shows Santorum, despite the 5M in ads, absolutely stuck at 39%.
Now you know why the GOP is so deperate to get Romanelli on the ballot.

This is also another poll where the internal number of people contacted by region, gender, and ethnicity isn't shown so it's hard to analyze the numbers. The poll does say that its sample underrepresented men and minorities and thus the data was weighted to account for that.


Buoyed by a summer advertising blitz, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., has narrowed Bob Casey's lead in the battle for public opinion, closing to within 6 points of the Democratic state treasurer, a new Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll has found.

In arguably the nation's marquee U.S. Senate contest, Casey holds a 45 percent to 39 percent advantage in the telephone poll of 550 registered voters.

http://www.keystonepolitics.com/Article4019.html

[blue neen]

8. Senior citizens are PISSED at Santorum.

I work in a pharmacy and a lot of them are now stuck "in the donut hole" in the Medicare Part D plan. They now have to come up with $3000 for their prescriptions for the rest of the year. Some of them don't have it and just quit taking their meds.

Santorum has been running ads BRAGGING about supporting this plan and taking care of seniors. HA! The ones I see and talk to don't feel like they're being taken care of. They are mocking Santorum's ad and his obnoxious bragging.

I'm in western PA, and he's in trouble here. The taxpayers are also extremely angry with Santorum for how he weaseled Penn Hills School District into paying for his kids' cyber-schooling--they're living in Virginia all the while.

[RamboLiberal]

13. I was reading about the donut hole today and how seniors

are going to hit it in the coming months. They pegged Sept 22nd as the D-Day for median of seniors. I do hope Sanctimoneous ad bragging about getting this for seniors bites him and other Repukes in the butt big time at the polls.

I do think Santorum unfortunately is running rings around Casey with the ads. Ricky just trotted out he and his cute family ad. So far IMHO Casey has been a weak campaigner. Heck a local talk show liberal host scolded him a few weeks ago for not getting more passionate.

I'm hoping Casey is not running a Kerry campaign.

[blue neen]

16. It'll be nice when the Casey ads start running.

Santorum had more money, so he was able to start his campaign bullshit earlier. It's interesting that Santorum has been showing ads constantly, but this is all the closer he can get.

[Name removed]

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[Mass]

10. This seems very close compared to other polls.

[rpannier]

11. I read up on this poll

It's really kind of shoddy work. The poll claims that it under represented men and minorities so it made adjustments in its numbers. It doesn't say what adjustments it made or how it came to its conclusions. According to the more reliable polls (Quinnipac and Rassmussen) it's not much of a race and Casey still leads by about 10 percentage points.

On edit: However, Casey should get his team moving. There's no point in waiting until it's too late. Stopping a freight train beflore it reaches 80 mph is much easier.

[creeksneakers2]

12. Even with a 10 point lead its closer than it was

I worry about Casey (and all the other Democrats this year) because they never poll much better than 50%. The GOP runs close to 40%. That leaves a block of undecideds of 10%.

Figure 2004 was close to 50/50. So Democrats have all the people they had in 2004 but the GOP doesn't. That means the undecideds are most likely to go back to the GOP, if they vote at all. The undecideds are right leaning moderates.

Casey was up by much more than 10 points months ago but Santorum has narrowed the race with some very well done ads aimed at moderate voters.

The obvious strategy for Casey would be to run ads showing Santorum for the right wing extremist nut case that he is. Of course, that means a negative ad campaign, and negative ads don't play well to moderates.

This could end up being a very close race and it would be well if the Greens and their GOP assisting campaigns would take a flying leap. Casey needs to move soon before Santorum can redefine himself.

[Mr_Spock]

14. "The undecideds are right leaning moderates."

I'm curious how you know all 10% of the "undecideds" are "right leaning"?

[creeksneakers2]

15. A few things

In 2004 Pennsylvania went 51% Kerry and 49% Bush. So the state is split about evenly. I figure that Casey has about all the Kerry vote but no more. Santorum is about 9% short of the Bush vote. So I count the undecideds as former Bush voters.

I believe they are moderates because I've seen several polls showing that the GOP still has the RW vote locked up but not the moderate vote.

Another reason I believe they are right leaning moderates is that Santorums ads are obviously aimed at right leaning moderates.

[noel711]

17. Sadly...

the Santorum 'machine' is running constant ads here...

I live in the area that poll was taken, and Casey is doing nothing, simply nothing. Casey is not the best candidate for the job, he seems to be running on his father's name, and does not put the issue out in the open.

However, it seems that most people are thinking: Anyone but Santorum. It's sad that the Democratic party can't come up with another viable candidate to replace Santorum. This is the Senate for God's sake!
Hey, I'm available! I have a brain! I'm Pro-choice! I'm a registered Democrat! Call me guys!

[Efilroft Sul]

18. I said on this site back in spring that Casey would blow it.

I hope that I'm proven wrong in three months. With that said, Bob Casey won't win a campaign just running on his daddy's name. Heck, when he speaks at the end of a commercial on his behalf, it sounds like he's talking in his sleep: "imbobcaseyandiapprovedthismessage."

Snore.

Now I know that Santorum has more money in his war chest and has ads appearing early, but when Casey finally can afford a sustained ad campaign he has to come out with a forceful, POSITIVE message or he's going to get smoked like a blunt in November. Going after Santorum alone won't cut it. Why? Santorum's airing forceful (and mostly positive) ads and, whether you know he's full of crap or not, he's speaking with what sounds like the strength of his convictions -- or at least he's saying what voters want to hear. In either case, he's doing what he's gotta do, and people straddling the fence will ALWAYS go for the politician with the more forceful message even if it's against their own self interest.