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Onorato’s support grows slightly in still-wide-open race

Democrat Dan Onorato is sporting deeper support than he or any of his primary rivals have enjoyed thus far, but almost half of likely Democratic voters are still undecided, according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday morning painted a picture of race that, while still largely undefined, is slowly but surely coming into focus. The poll showed Onorato leading the four-way primary with 20 percent of the vote, compared to 15 percent for Joe Hoeffel, 13 percent for Jack Wagner and 5 percent for Anthony Williams. Forty-seven percent of voters are still undecided, and among those who do have a preference, 70 percent say they could still change their mind, according to the poll.

Onorato was the only candidate who had started a TV advertising blitz when the poll was conducted, and Williams is expected to follow suit this week. Though the race is wide open, Quinnipiac University Polling Institute assistant director Peter Brown said the results would likely boil down to who had the resources to run an effective statewide campaign.

“With the candidates so unknown and just under half the voters undecided almost anything can happen, although history tells us in situations like this one, the winner will be the candidate with the largest and most effective television ad campaign and ground operation to bring out their vote,” Brown said. “With that level of anonymity, anything is possible. This is clearly a race that is yet to be decided.”

By that measure, Onorato and Williams clearly have a leg up, even though a whopping 90 percent of voters don’t yet know enough about Williams to form an opinion. Onorato has a large fundraising edge over all the candidates with about $6.7 million in cash on hand at the end of last month. Williams quickly raised $1.7 million after a late entrance into the race, while Wagner has less than $700,000 on hand and Hoeffel has just over $100,000 on hand.

Onorato’s first round of TV ads had just started when the poll was conducted, but they may already be having an impact: Despite arguably having the smallest statewide political profile, Onorato is the best known of the candidates, with 64 percent of likely voters saying they don’t know enough about him. By contrast, previous statewide runs appear to have afforded relatively little name recognition to Wagner and Hoeffel, with 73 percent and 75 percent of likely voters not knowing enough about them, respectively. Their support is also softer, according to the poll, with 86 percent of Wagner backers saying they might change their mind, and 71 percent of Hoeffel voters saying the same.

In the Republican primary for governor, Attorney General Tom Corbett still holds a wide lead over state Representative Sam Rohrer, 58 percent to 7 percent; more than a third of GOP voters remain undecided.

The survey of 921 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted March 31 to April 5, and had a margin of error of 3.2 percent.

Click here to see the full poll.

April 7, 2010 at 8:46 am

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Anthony Williams, Dan Onorato, Jack Wagner, Joe Hoeffel, Sam Rohrer, Tom Corbett

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