It's another round of
topsy-turvy polling from Quinnipiac, which somehow has decided that Ohio is a bluer state than Pennsylvania. The problem with this view is that such a situation hasn't obtained
since 1948 (Dewey Defeats Truman... in Pennsylvania but not Ohio), and there's no reason to think it will next year. But here comes Quinnipiac with
a Keystone sample that's an even 33 percent Democratic and 33 percent Republican, while
their Buckeye respondents are 30 percent Democratic to just 27 percent Republican.
That odd divergence seems to be at least partly reflected in the Senate toplines, which show GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania in good shape but continue to find his fellow Republican from Ohio, Sen. Rob Portman, looking weak. Toomey leads ex-Rep. Joe Sestak by a 48-33 spread and beats the newest entrant in the Democratic primary, Katie McGinty, by a similar 48-32 margin. That's not too different from the 47-36 edge Toomey sported over Sestak back in June, but it's a very different picture from what PPP saw in May, when they put Toomey ahead just 42-38.
Portman, on the other hand, trails ex-Gov. Ted Strickland 44-41, which, once again, is not a big change from the 46-40 advantage Strickland held in June. (Portman does beat up on little-known Cincinnati City Councilor P.G. Sittenfeld, 46-25.) In this case, PPP's most recent survey, also from June, found a competitive contest but was still more bearish for Team Blue, putting Portman on top 43-41.
So you have one pollster, Quinnipiac, regularly saying that Ohio looks better for Democrats than Pennsylvania on the Senate front, while another, PPP, has found both about equally competitive. It's not impossible that Quinnipiac could be right—after all, candidate quality does matter, and Strickland's a more impressive recruit than either Sestak or McGinty. But their survey demographics still don't make sense: PPP, by contrast, had a +3 Democratic sample in Ohio but +9 Democratic in Pennsylvania. As between these two pollsters, Quinnipiac's departure from reasonable expectations makes PPP's results feel a lot more trustworthy.