Ipsos for Reuters (8/27-28, likely voters, no trendlines):
Joe Sestak (D): 37
Pat Toomey (R): 47
Undecided: 15
(MoE: ±4.9%)
Ipsos strikes in another state with another of their interesting both-LV-and-RV polls. The enthusiasm gap seems as big here in Pennsylvania as it does anywhere: the LV model spells certain doom for Dems, with Joe Sestak falling into a double-digit deficit against Pat Toomey, while the RV model (MoE 4%) says this is still a perfectly salvageable race, with Toomey leading Sestak 40-37. (Unfortunately, the LV model is the one that counts in the end.) Any remaining Arlen Specter fans won’t feel vindicated by this poll: if Specter were running against Toomey, he’d be losing just as widely, 52-40.
Maybe realizing that the strategy he used so effectively and efficiently against Specter in the primary (wait, wait, wait some more, and then unleash a massive, expertly targeted salvo in the closing weeks) won’t work if he gets himself in too deep of a hole beforehand, Joe Sestak is breaking open the piggybank and going on TV. His first ad is anti-Toomey spot, working the Wall Street angle (already thoroughly explored by the DSCC). It’s a buy through Sept. 6th, for a total of $111K, with ads running in the Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Harrisburg, and Wilkes-Barre markets (not Philly, where presumably he’s better known).
Dan Onorato (D): 34
Tom Corbett (R): 49
Undecided: 16
(MoE: ±4.9%)
Same deal with the gubernatorial race: the LV model yields a 15-point lead for GOP AG Tom Corbett over Dem Dan Onorato. Switch over to a registered voter model, and it’s only a not-bad 43-37 advantage for Corbett. Again, plans of getting all those RVs to magically show up aren’t really hopes you should hang your hat on, at this point in the game, though.
Comes off like Mr. Rogers more than a retired Admiral. He’s allowed Toomey and the Club for Growth to frame him and allowed Toomey to get away from his ridiculous statements. Also worth noting is a lot of Toomey’s “bombshell” statements that Sestak is probably planning to use late in the campaign are too insider economics stuff that will be lost in translation to most voters and not nearly as cut and dry as “It will enable me to be re-elected”.
Sestak seems to think that he can use his primary strategy in the general, and he’s terribly mistaken. In the primary the voter goes out looking for information, in the general the voter needs to be spoonfed information – and all they’re hearing right now is from Toomey and CFG.
Specter would have the middle ground claimed, forcing Toomey to the fringe right where he belongs. Sestak has allowed Toomey to come in from the far right and stake claim to the middle because he’s so ineffectual as a campaign.
Specter’s problem would have been getting enough democrats out for him, but he would have grabbed 2/5ths of the Republican vote, meaning if he just got half the Democratic vote to turn out for him he was going to win.
I’m still pretty confident that, in the end, Sestak will pull this out. Toomey’s economic policies are to the right of even Santorum’s. And the DSCC has committed a lot of money to the race.
But I think Sestak will pull through in the end. Pennsylvania has a Democratic cushion that will pull thru in the end, as long as Sestak knows he has to get the base out and hammer Toomey for the last few weeks of the race non-stop.
Aaah, I can almost imagine myself stressing out over the Philadephia vote on election night.
With the exception of Harris Wofford in a 1991 special election, when has a progressive won a race for Governor or Senate in Pennsylvania? In Pennsylvania, you either need to be a conservaDem in the Casey mold that wins big margins among the old and bitter clingers or a Rendell big business socially liberal Democrat that is going to drive suburban votes to the Democratic column.
Additionally, the swing voters are generally more right leaning on economic issues in Pennsylvania. Democratic inroads in the last decade have been in wealthier areas reacting against the social issue insanity being pushed by many Republicans including Santorum. Toomey has never pushed social issues and seems to prefer having major surgery to talking about them.
In a typical wave election there is always somebody who you never thought would lose but really becomes “collateral damage”. Should November be a wave for the GOP this strikes me as a race that would be collateral damage. In 2006 and 2008 this wave took out formidable incumbents such as Mike DeWine, Jim Talent and Gordon Smith. Typically, I don’t see PA as a state that is friendly to someone such as Pat Toomey who made a career from taking out moderate Republicans. If Sestak can hammer home that Toomey = Santorum and paint him as an extremist I think he can take it. Toomey is by far not moderate and is a partisan ideologue who fits in with Jim DeMint not with Bob Casey. Driving turnout in Philly is going to be problematic for Sestak. While he represented the suburbs in Congress he has not built up any machine there to offset what Toomey’s energetic crowd will do.
Say what you want but Specter would have been toast. Instead of saying that the Republican Party left him and that he felt the Democratic Party was more representative of PA’s interests he made it appear that he was merely trying to save his own job. Toomey would have had a field day on him. If Sestak doesn’t get going in the next 2 weeks in a big way I am going to chalk this up as a loss which is really unfortunate.
I know it is hard to hear but all the evidence is pointing to a Toomey win. Toomey is turning out to be a non-crazy sounding, polished candidate. The national climate is terrible for Democrats. Corbett is most likely going to win in a blowout. Toomey leads every poll. Sesak beat a weak opponant in the primary. Health-Care reform is unpopular in PA which is older than almost any state.
Sesak is a good candidate but good candidates lose in bad years due to no mistake of their own.