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No surprises in new Rasmussen poll

Last week, pa2010.com reported on a new Rasmussen poll that shows Senator Arlen Specter edging out Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7) for the Democratic nomination. It also showed both candidates beating Republican Pat Toomey in a general election match-up.

In a Specter-Toomey match-up, Specter wins by 11 points, while Sestak edges Toomey by 6 points. What’s remarkable about this poll isn’t that Specter beats Toomey by such a healthy margin, but rather that, when up against a relatively unknown Democrat, Toomey still faces a statistically significant loss. Toomey is facing an uphill battle if polls show him losing to a man about whom 25 percent of respondents said they knew too little. The poll also highlights the built-in advantage any Democrat will have going into this race in this state.

So is Arlen Specter invincible? Not necessarily. True, the polls currently show him beating Toomey by a relatively wide margin. But these numbers are definitely encouraging for Sestak, who can now claim that he too could take down Toomey in a general, weakening any “electability” argument Specter could have made. To see why Sestak is in a pretty good position at this point, let’s look at the favorability numbers next to each other:

VERY FAV.—FAV.—UNFAV.—VERY UNFAV.—UNSURE
SPECTER: 24———-53———-43———-26———-3
SESTAK: 12———-42———-32———-12———-26
TOOMEY: 15———-50———-35———-15———-16

These numbers should surprise no one. Outside the group of hardcore politicos who closely monitor Pennsylvania politics, the conventional wisdom has long been that Joe Sestak is still largely unknown in much of the state. Thus, it shouldn’t be a surprise that 26 percent of voters are unsure how the feel about him. True, Sestak’s favorability rating is 11 points lower than Specter’s—42 percent to 53 percent—but his negative ratings are also 11 points lower, 32 percent compared to 43 percent. Thus, while Arlen Specter’s level of support has basically bottomed out, with only 4 percent of Pennsylvanians unsure of how they feel about him, Sestak has lots of room for improvement.

The numbers are almost reminiscent of the match-up between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton early in the Democratic primary for president. While Hillary’s positives were initially higher, and in polls she beat the Republican candidate by more points, her negatives were also higher and more fixed. By contrast, Barack Obama had lots of room to improve, and he did, eventually succeeding with his argument that change was more important than experience and “electability.”

Joe Sestak faces a similar uphill climb. But this race is very different from the presidential primary. To beat Specter, Sestak will need to leverage all the levers of the progressive political establishment and run an aggressive ad campaign that will make him better known in the state. The numbers are against him; with more money and the full support of the political establishment, Specter is much better situated to win the primary, and that is reflected in the numbers as well. The Rasmussen poll has Specter trouncing Sestak in a Democratic primary 51 percent to 32 percent. 51 percent is a majority, however thin it may be. While this poll does show signs of hope for Sestak, not to mention the general strength of the Democratic brand in Pennsylvania, it also shows that Sestak has his work cut out for him if he hopes to overtake Specter in the Democratic primary.

June 22, 2009 at 1:51 pm

--Adam Schwartzbaum

Tags: Arlen Specter, Joe Sestak, Pat Toomey

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