Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Pat Toomey
Quinnipiac has painted a dire picture in Pennsylvania for Team Blue, with Republican Sen. Pat Toomey consistently leading his prospective Democratic foes by
horrific margins. But with questions about the makeup of Quinnipiac's samples, we've long thirsted for another pollster to go into the field in the Keystone State. And indeed, a new PPP survey finds a very different landscape: Toomey is ahead, yes,
but he's by no means unbeatable:
• 41-34 vs. Braddock Mayor John Fetterman
• 43-36 vs. former gubernatorial chief of staff Katie McGinty
• 41-38 vs. 2010 nominee Joe Sestak
PPP gives Toomey a weak 28-43 approval rating,
very different
from the 51-27 score Quinnipiac most recently found. Some of Toomey's weakness is with Republican voters, who only approve of him by a 42-27 margin, but will likely come home to him in the general. But Toomey is underwater with independents and isn't getting much love from Democrats, and it's very difficult for a Republican to win here without more support from both groups.
PPP usually gives politicians worse ratings than other pollsters, but the gap is rarely this massive. Toomey's re-election chances may come down to which pollster is closer to the truth. Pennsylvania usually votes Democratic in presidential years, and if Toomey is anywhere near as unpopular as PPP thinks, he's not going to have an easy time finding crossover voters. But if Quinnipiac is correct and Toomey has won his constituents over, he's well-positioned for next year. Not many other pollsters have released numbers here in recent months, so we'll just need to wait for more information.
The good news for all three Democrats is that they should have more room to grow once they become better known. Sestak nearly won this seat in 2010, but 58 percent of respondents have no opinion of him; those who do give him a 21-20 favorability rating.
McGinty is a favorite of the Democratic establishment but few voters remember her unimpressive 2014 gubernatorial bid, and she has favorables of just 14-21. Fetterman has gotten national attention for his work trying to revitalize his small town of Braddock, but 79 percent of voters don't know who he is. At this point, Sestak is likely performing better than the other two Democrats against Toomey simply because more people recognize him.
Powerful national and state Democrats have made it plain that they'd prefer to see McGinty as their nominee instead of Sestak. Sestak enraged the establishment when he successfully challenged party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter in the 2010 primary, and those same people are convinced that Sestak is running an amateurish campaign against Toomey. PPP gives us an early look at the primary and finds that Sestak leads McGinty 29-22, while Fetterman takes 14.
At this point, even Keystone State Democrats don't have much of an opinion about any of their three choices. Sestak has a 29-18 favorable rating among members of his own party, while McGinty and Fetterman are at 23-15 and 10-16 respectively. Sestak's initial edge once again seems to be the product of name recognition, and things will change one way or another once the primary campaign heats up.
McGinty had a strong opening fundraising quarter, so she'll have the resources to get her name out. Sestak's fundraising has been very uneven and he hasn't released his latest quarterly haul yet, though he has millions left in his warchest. Fetterman only recently got into the race, and we'll need to see if he has the connections to raise the type of money he'll need in this expensive state.