I love how the right-leaning Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is spinning this:
http://triblive.com/...
While Democrat Tom Wolf rallies support on a statewide bus tour, the latest poll in the Pennsylvania governor's race shows Gov. Tom Corbett has narrowed the wide gap Wolf enjoyed throughout much of the race.
But with less than a week until Election Day, the reality of a Corbett victory remains a long shot, pollster Terry Madonna said.
The Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in a survey released Wednesday found Wolf leads Corbett 50 percent to 32 percent among registered voters. The margin is down from 25 points two months ago.
“The question is what happens in the final week, when historically nobody has ever come back in this state from that kind of deficit a week out,” said Madonna, a political science professor. “It's now all about whether Democrats and Republicans can motivate their voters,” and if there's any major “October surprise” remaining.
Corbett, 65, a Shaler Republican, could be the first governor to lose a re-election bid in Pennsylvania history. Wolf, 65, who runs a family-owned cabinet manufacturing business in his native York County, is a first-time candidate who handily won a four-way Democratic primary.
The poll surveyed 738 Pennsylvania registered voters from Oct. 20-26 and has a sampling error of 3.4 percentage points.
Madonna said Corbett's catch-up is largely from winning back Republican voters. The October poll showed 66 percent of Republicans intend to vote for Corbett, up from 62 percent last month and 48 percent in August.
Almost one in five voters, 17 percent, remain undecided. - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 10/28/14
The Philadelphia Inquirer also released their own poll with pretty much the same numbers:
http://www.philly.com/...
Conventional wisdom says that any old Democrat could beat Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) this year, given his damaged political brand and an electorate convinced the state is on the wrong track.
A poll conducted for a third-party advocacy group shortly before the Democratic primary, however, calls that thinking into question.
The survey of likely voters, obtained by The Inquirer, tested two potential candidates against Corbett.
It found Tom Wolf, the actual winner of the nomination, would start with a lead of 51 percent to 37 percent against Corbett, including voters who were leaning toward one candidate or the other.
Yet the candidate who began the year as the Democrats’ front-runner, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Montgomery County, would have entered the general election trailing Corbett by one percentage point: 42 percent for the governor, to 41 percent for Schwartz, according to the survey, which included leaners.
At the time, Republicans in the Corbett orbit said privately they believed Wolf would be their most formidable opponent because of his background as a businessman, and because, as a first time candidate, he had no record in political office to exploit.
The consensus was that Schwartz, with thousands of votes in the U.S. House and a role in shaping parts of the Affordable Care Act, would have been easy to tie to the unpopular President Obama. Her Philadelphia association and past as the operator of a women’s health clinic where abortions were performed may have proved vulnerabilities, some in the GOP believed. - Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/28/14
The Inquirer's poll was conducted by Hart Research Associates. The results were based on telephone interviews from May 9 through May 12 with 810 likely voters -- of whom 42 percent identified themselves as Democrats and 36 percent said they were Republicans. The findings were subject to a margin of sampling error of plus or minus about 3.5 percentage points.
These results are great but big name Democrats are telling voters not to get complacent:
http://www.mcall.com/...
Former President Bill Clinton warned Democrats against complacency Monday as he urged a South Side crowd to make sure that their neighbors turn out next week to vote for Tom Wolf in his bid to unseat Gov. Tom Corbett.
"You have in some ways the best candidate for governor in America,'' Clinton said after a brief introduction that the low-key Wolf acknowledged with a smile, "You didn't come here to see me."
Clinton denounced "partisanship and blood lust and negative campaigning that has nothing to do with where we are and where we should be going.''
But he told a crowd of roughly 1,000 that Democrats are partially to blame for the climate and policies they deplore.
"A different America shows up when we vote for president and when we vote in midterm elections," Clinton said, pointing to the fact that groups including young voters and minorities are underrepresented in the mid-term electorate compared with the turnout in years when the president is on the ballot.
In his 15-minute speech, Clinton lauded Wolf for returning to his home town after finishing his Ph.D. at MIT. He also praised the Wolf proposal to impose a new severance tax on natural gas.
Referring to his own experience as a governor of a natural gas-producing state —Arkansas — Clinton argued it makes sense to take revenue from a depleting resource and put it into education, a resource he said would keep on giving to the community. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/27/14
And if you live Philadelphia, get ready for this guy:
http://www.pennlive.com/...
President Barack Obama will headline a campaign event for Tom Wolf this Sunday in Philadelphia in advance of Tuesday's election.
Sunday's event will start at 4 p.m. at the Liacouras Center at Temple University at 1776 North Broad Street.
Wolf is scheduled to appear at campaign stops tomorrow in State College, Lock Haven, Bloomsburg, Reading and Coatesville. - The Patriot-News, 10/28/14
And Wolf secured his home town's newspaper endorsement:
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/...
Democrat Tom Wolf is the real deal, and we here in York County should know.
The Mount Wolf businessman is known around here for his public service and helping those in need.
He has generously contributed to local causes and has held seats on the boards of numerous local organization, including a stint as chair of the York County United Way.
The story of how he bought back his family's building products business in 2009 and saved it from bankruptcy is legendary.
Hundreds of local jobs were saved at the Wolf Organization, and Wolf has since paid back the bank in full.
He holds multiple degrees from Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of London.
He interrupted those studies for a time when he joined the Peace Corps, which sent him to serve in rural India.
Although this is his first run for public office, Wolf also has served at the state level as revenue secretary in the Rendell administration.
His reputation as a caring, smart and successful member of our community is such that local Republicans switched parties so they could vote for him in the May primary.
Wolf has pledged to rebuild education in Pennsylvania.
He says he'll boost funding by $1 billion and increase the state's share of education spending back to 50 percent of the overall cost, while fixing the state's broken funding formula.
To help pay for it, he supports a 5 percent severance tax on natural gas extraction.
He has also proposed raising the state income tax on higher earners — individuals making more than $70,000 to $90,000 a year and families bringing in more than $140,000 to $180,000 — and lowering it for the middle class.
Wolf also favors raising the state's minimum wage, giving patients access to medical marijuana, gay marriage, a woman's right to choose, a Medicaid expansion without strings and "meaningful" emission-reduction targets for greenhouse gases.
Elect Tom Wolf, and you'll get the type of governor we haven't seen for a while — one who looks out for average, hard-working Pennsylvanians. - York Dispatch, 10/28/14
Turnout is still key here. It could help not only Wolf win but other Democrats on the ballot. Click here to donate and get involved with Wolf's campaign, State Senator Mike Stack's (D. PA) Lt. Governor campaign, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party so we can take back the State Senate and to Manan Trivedi (D. PA-06) and Kevin Strouse's (D. PA-08) campaigns:
http://www.wolfforpa.com/
http://www.stackforpa.com/
http://www.padems.com/
http://www.trivediforcongress.com/...
http://www.kevinstrouse.com/