Public Policy Polling (8/14-16, likely voters, 6/19-21 in parens):
Dan Onorato (D): 35 (35)
Tom Corbett (R): 48 (45)
Undecided: 17 (20)
(MoE: ±4.1%)
In the other half of the Pennsylvania sample that saw a big drop in Joe Sestak’s numbers against Pat Toomey because of PPP’s inevitable jump from a registered to likely voter model, the news isn’t quite as bad for Dan Onorato… but that’s mostly because he wasn’t doing very well to begin with. He loses only three points’ worth of ground, compared to Sestak’s nine. We’re getting to the point where we can’t blame Onorato’s failure to close within single digits on his unknownness, as this sample has about the same number of no-opinions for him (30/28 favorables) as it does for Corbett (33/23); it seems to have more to do with the anti-Dem nature of the year (which seems disproportionately strong in Pennsylvania), as well as the downdraft eminating from Ed Rendell (current approvals of 27/63).
One other point of serious concern for Pennsylvania Democrats: PPP did a generic House ballot test within the state, and it has a 48-39 advantage for the GOP. (That contrasts with a generic House ballot with a 46-40 Democratic advantage in Illinois, also from this week’s PPP sample.) With a lot of the state’s Democrats concentrated in just a few districts in Philly and Pittsburgh, that points to serious potential trouble for more than just the most vulnerable seats (the open seat in PA-07, Paul Kanjorski in PA-11) to some of the other ones too. While a statewide generic ballot isn’t of much more predictive value than a nationwide generic ballot, it certainly suggests that, say, Kathy Dahlkemper and Patrick Murphy need to be at the top of their games this cycle.
I think alot of Onorato’s troubles are more because of Rendell than of the national climate. The man is pure poison is this state (honestly when I talk politics with people I know they can’t think of one good think to say about the man and that includes Democrats). That and Onorato’s going up againist a well known statewide officeholder has a lot to do with it. Plus Corbett tenure as AG haasn’t been that bad as he’s done alot of good such as cracking down on pedofiles and puppy mills. I probally would vote for him except I like Onorato alot and that Corbett want to repeal HCR.
As for the generic house ballot for PA. As I said time after time I wouldn’t put too much stock as there fairly unreliable and there not specific enough. I mean take the national generic ballot. When the GOP controlled Congress, cycle after cycle had us in the lead but never took the House. There something to look at for maybe navigation but I would put all my stock into them. To be very blunt out of all the districts we control in PA I only see two flipping: PA-7 (Sestak, open seat) and PA-11 (Kanjorski) with PA-3 (Dahlkemper) and PA-8 (Patrick Murphy) to look at down the road but I don’t see Dahlkemper and Murphy.
I had some spare time this weekend and threw all the US House results from Pennsylvania from 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 into a spreadsheet to see what was the total votes each party received statewide for Congress each election. Here are the results and third party votes are excluded because they do not matter (seats won):
2002
Republican (12): 56.03%
Democratic (7): 42.47%
2004
Republican (12): 49.79%
Democratic (7): 48.62%
2006
Republican (8): 43.18%
Democratic (11): 55.57%
2008
Republican (7): 43.96%
Democratic (12): 55.03%
Based off the PPP numbers and giving the Democrats a 2 to 1 advantage among undecided voters(13% / 3 = 4.3 GOP and 8.6 for Dems, I break down the race as follows:
Republican 48 + 4.3 = 52.3%
Democratic 39 + 8.6 = 47.6%
Based off these numbers, I would estimate the Democrats lose at least four seats (PA-7,PA-11,PA-3,PA-8).