The last time Quinnipiac Uniersity covered the Pennsylvania Senate race, the result was right in the middle of the pack, and inline with every poll from mid-July to early October: a seven point lead for Republican Pat Toomey over Democrat Joe Sestak.
But now, just as PPP came out with its shocking Sestak lead, Q says the race is close.
48-46 Toomey isn’t nearly as surprising as the PPP lead we saw, but it’s still the mark of a closer race. I suspect this one is closer to accurate, though as always more polling will confirm or deny it.
With a Margin of Error of 3, if other polls followed this trend, we’d see this race drop all the way to a 65% Republican win probability in my projections. Still good for Toomey, but well off from that 85% I believe I had him at for a while.
For all the states and races we’ve seen the Democrats give up on, there had to be some race, somewhere, where their spending would make a positive difference for them. Pennsylvania appears to be it, especially since the Governor’s race appears to be closing as well.
House of Representatives Swingometer
Electoral College Swingometer
Look at the internals. A 14 point lead among democrats? I don’t buy it.
From where are you getting, “…especially since the Governor’s race appears to be closing as well.” From Quin.? Or from somewhere else?
Because RCP is actually showing the opposite – Corbett’s lead slightly growing today (esp. if you omit PPP’s almost certainly erroneous result…).
Back up a bit and the polling’s a bit erratic. some low single digit leads for Corbett.
Democrats and Republicans split evenly for their candidates.
Independents lean Republican 56-34.
I’m very okay with those numbers in Pennsyvlania.
I had some thoughts on this poll, too.
Bottom line: I just don’t buy it. The only way for it to be even close to reality would be for Pennsylvania Democrats to turn out somewhere close to 2006 midterm levels. The independents are simply breaking too hard for Toomey (and are simply too energized) for the sample weighting in this poll to be anywhere close to accurate.
(And from where, exactly, did Obama get a seven-point improvement swing in his approval rating in Pennsylvania between this poll and the previous one?)