A new poll for Democrat Christina Hartman finds her in an unexpectedly tight race with Republican Lloyd Smucker—and Smucker's confirmed that he doesn't have things locked up since he just started airing his first negative ad. We'll start with the poll. Hartman's survey, from GBA Strategies, has Smucker ahead just 45-42 in Pennsylvania’s open 16th District, with the Libertarian candidate taking 9 percent; at the same time, Hillary Clinton is beating Donald Trump 47-43. The poll also shows Hartman making significant gains, since unreleased July numbers has Smucker in front 44-34.
What makes these numbers so noteworthy is that this district definitely tilts to the right: Mitt Romney carried it 52-46 four years ago. But they aren't implausible, since Barack Obama actually narrowly beat John McCain 50-49 back in 2008. And it appears Trump has suffered here lately, since Hartman's memo says that Clinton's current 4-point lead is a "reversal" of her position in July, when she was presumably trailing by 4.
That's still something of a surprise, though, since this district, located in the western Philadelphia suburbs, isn't especially affluent or well-educated—it's roughly in the middle of the pack on both metrics. But it may well be that Trump's malign campaign is experiencing rejection in suburbs like these, too. Hartman certainly seems to believe so, since she recently launched an ad tying Smucker to Trump's "grab them by the pussy" vulgarities.
And while Smucker hasn't yet commented on Hartman's poll or provided contradictory numbers of his own, his decision to start running attack ads is an answer in and of itself. (His spot slams Hartman for wanting to accept refugees and for supporting the Iran nuclear deal.) Smucker's also getting some outside help from the pro-GOP Congressional Leadership Fund, which just the other day said it would spend $400,000 on TV time here. It's not clear whether CLF is genuinely concerned or just playing it safe, but even if they're only taking out an insurance policy against a further collapse, that's still saying something.
But what will say even more is whether outside Democratic groups like the DCCC decide they believe in Hartman and start shelling out some bucks for the stretch run.
Can you chip in $3 to help Christina Hartman close that final 3-point gap?