PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Tight Senate Race, Corbett Leads for Governor

[ccharles000]

Quinnipiac (9/22-28, registered voters, 7/14-19 in parentheses):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 42 (45)
Pat Toomey (R): 43 (44)
Don't know: 13 (10)

Joe Sestak (D): 35 (35)
Pat Toomey (R): 38 (39)
Don't know: 25 (23)

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 44 (55)
Joe Sestak (D): 25 (23)
Don't know: 28 (19)
(MoE: ±3%)


Quinnipiac (9/21-28, registered voters, 7/14-19 in parentheses):


Dan Onorato (D): 28
Tom Corbett (R): 47
Don't know: 24

Jack Wagner (D): 29
Tom Corbett (R): 44
Don't know: 25

Dan Onorato (D): 14 (16)
Joe Hoeffel (D): 12 (NA)
Jack Wagner (D): 11 (16)
Chris Doherty (D): 8 (NA)
Tom Knox (D): 5 (13)
Don't know: 46 (54)

Tom Corbett (R): 42 (38)
Jim Gerlach (R): 13 (15)
Don't know: 43 (37)
Don't know: 28 (19)
(MoE: ±3%)

Lots of data to look at from Quinnipiac, who look at the primary fields in both the Senate and Governor's races in Pennsylvania as well as head-to-head general election matchups in both races. The Senate race has both Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Joe Sestak neck-and-neck with ex-Rep. Pat Toomey; there has actually been very little movement since the previous Quinnipiac poll in the head-to-heads, although the Democratic primary looks a lot closer (but at this point Specter seems to be bleeding votes to "don't know" rather than directly to Sestak).

Things look worse in the Governor's race, where AG Tom Corbett leads both Auditor Jack Wagner and Allegheny Co. Dan Onorato by double digits. In July, everyone was so little-known that Quinnipiac simply asked a Generic D/Generic R question (where "R" won, 38-37), so clearly Wagner and Onorato are underperforming their imaginary Dem colleague. This may, however, be a factor of name recognition, as Corbett is much better-known than any of his competition (he has 43/7 favorables with 49% don't know, while Gerlach and all the Dems top 70% don't know). It seems like Wagner (who is elected statewide, and actually had the biggest victory of anyone running statewide in 2006) should be well-known -- but setting aside us political junkies, who really knows who their Auditor is (while Corbett has spent years in the spotlight via the Bonusgate investigation)?

There's one other consideration here, one that cropped up with Quinnipiac's last poll too: they sampled an equal number of Democrats and Republicans (they may have oversampled to compensate, but they simply don't provide any more details in the crosstabs as to whether that's what they did), which is way off from the state's actual composition. Bear in mind, though, that Nate Silver re-ran the July numbers to correct for that problem and found that it only made a few points' worth of difference... so at this point, this looks more a case of low-info voters not yet knowing enough about Toomey other than that he's not Arlen Specter, and not knowing much of anything about anybody other than Corbett in the governor's race.

http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/5664/pasen-pagov-tight-senate-race-corbett-leads-for-governor

[NYC Democrat]

1. really there is no real way Pat Toomey can win with a majority and I think the fact that he has not

really moved all since the last poll shows that somewhere around 44% is his ceiling so the only way Specter or Sestak can lose is if they become so unpopular Voters who would normally vote for them vote third party instead.

[ShadowLiberal]

4. I must agree as a PAer, no way is Toomey beating Specter or Sestak

Much as Toomey is trying to position himself as 'in the middle', like by claiming he'd vote for Sotomayor to be on the Supreme Court, his record still shows he's a radical who would never be a good fit for the state.

[RepublicanElephant]

2. i'd like to see these numbers after obama's healthcare is law. nt

[old mark]

3. Corbett is the only name in the Governor's race I ever remotely recognize.

I think it will take some campaigning on behalf of PA Dems to get the names out there - I have seen abaolutely NO campaigning other than Specter/Toomey/Sestak on TV.
Rec - thanks for the post, CC.
mark