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Toomey holding big lead with likely voters
Former Congressman Pat Toomey is emerging as the early odds-on-favorite to win this year’s Senate election, leading both his potential Democratic opponents among a group of likely voters dominated by energized conservatives and lacking enthusiastic Democrats.
A growing body of recent polling data has shown Toomey beating both incumbent Senator Arlen Specter and Democratic challenger Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7), and a Franklin & Marshall College survey released Wednesday added to the evidence. In the poll of including 993 registered voters, Toomey and Specter each garnered 30 percent of the vote, with 35 percent undecided.
But among those most likely to vote, the poll found, Toomey leads 45 percent to 31 percent, with only 20 percent undecided. And a majority of voters still don’t know enough about Toomey for form an opinion, still giving Specter time to define him—but also giving Toomey time to define himself while Specter is bogged down in a primary fight.
Toomey’s lead over Sestak is larger. If the election were held today, he would win 28 percent of registered voters, while Sestak would get 16 percent. Among likely voters, Toomey has 41 percent to Sestak’s 19 percent, further suggesting that Republicans and right-leaning independents are increasingly likely to vote this year while Democrats stay home. The poll found that almost half of Republicans are planning to vote, compared to only about a third of Democrats.
“At the moment it looks as though maintaining Arlen Specter’s U.S. Senate seat will be a difficult task for Democrats,” the poll says.
Click here to download the poll.
January 27, 2010 at 9:45 am
Tags: Arlen Specter, Joe Sestak, Pat Toomey
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David Diano
Jan 27th, 2010
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com indicates that as things stand currently, Toomey’s got a 70% chance of taking the seat, whether he’s against Specter or Sestak.
Of course, if Sestak drops out and Specter can spend his time/money identifying how extremely right-wing Toomey is, this could easily revert back to a toss-up.
As I’ve said before, changes to the economy and the perceived trajectory will matter more than individual candidates.
These aren’t great numbers for Dems, but they are not insurmountable with solid action in Washington, a solid message and solid campaigning.
Bad news for specter
Jan 27th, 2010
Sestak’s numbers are pretty meaningless this far out considering he’s never run for public office before.
But the fact that Specter is tied among RVs and is getting killed among LVs indicates that he is not going to be able to motivate Dems to show up and vote. Why would they? Specter has been a Republican his entire career!
This is going to be a turnout election and Sestak is the only candidate who can fire up the Democratic base.
Bad news for specter
Jan 27th, 2010
“never run for public office before”
should read
“never run for statewide office before”
HateSestak
Jan 27th, 2010
Never run for public office before indeed. Apparently, Sestak’s minions (not unlike the would-be candidate himself) attach little importance to empirical facts or empirical reality!
95 South
Jan 28th, 2010
Toomey in a romp!!!!!
WiseOne
Jan 31st, 2010
THE GATEKEEPERS OF THIS WEB SITE DELETED MY COMMENTS ABOUT SPECTER AND TOOMEY VOTING TO REPEAL THE GLASS STEAGALL ACT IN 1999, AN ACTION THAT RUINED OUR BANKING SYSTEM. WHY IS PA2010.C0M AN UNDEMOCRATIC SITE? WHO CONTROLS IT? LET’S HEAR FROM DIANO AND OTHERS ON THIS.
Dan Hirschhorn
Feb 1st, 2010
Hey WiseOne,
As editor of pa2010.com, I can personally assure you that no such comment was deleted. I looked back at our comment database and didn’t see it. But we’ve been having a few glitches here and there, and you’re not the first person to encounter this problem.
Nonetheless, my sincerest apologies that it didn’t post.
Open dialogue is critical to us. If you’re ever having trouble getting a comment through, please feel free to e-mail me the body of it at editor@pa2010.com. I’ll be happy to make sure it gets online.
Sorry again.
Dan Hirschhorn