August 22, 2006
PA Senate Snapshot: Dems Tout Double Digit Casey Lead
We don't as a rule publish results from Zogby Internet or Rasmussen polls.
And we are generally wary about putting too much stock into one campaign's internal polls. An exception carves out when those polls are openly released and touted -- and when the opposing campaign fails to respond or responds in a way that suggests their internal snapshot looks much the same.
Fresh from the field, the DSCC released a poll conducted by the Benenson Strategy Group showing an 11 point lead by Bob Casey in a three way Pennsylvania Senate race with Sen. Rick Santorum and Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli. In a two-way race absent Romanelli, Casey leads by 14 points.
The sample size is 821, and DSCC spokesman Phil Singer describes the screen as follows: adults, 18+, voted in either '02 or '04 (or registerd after '04) who say they are likely to vote.
Yesterday, Sen. Rick Santorum's campaign e-mailed supporters a memo sent to campaign manager Vince Galko by pollster Neil Newhouse (R).
Newhouse conveniently notes that the campaign "isn't scheduled" to go back in the field until after Labor Day, but pointed that a slew of public polls showed a tightened race after a $5M largely unanswered Santorum television buy.
Concludes Newhouse: "All along we said that this race would close once voters got another look at Rick Santorum. Our internal goal was to be within six-seven points by Labor Day, then close the remaining margin over the last eight weeks of the race.
Singer responds in his memo: "With numbers like these, it’s no surprise that Santorum is willing to bend the law to get a Green Party candidate on the ballot. He knows he can’t win without splitting the vote for Casey. It won’t work because people are sick of politicians playing these kinds of games and want a new direction.”
Is the race closer than it was before? The preponderance of the data, which includes several public polls, reactions from the campaigns and the general effect of television advertisements, suggests that it is. That same evidence suggests that as soon as Casey's television presence matches Santorum's and voters begin to follow the race, the tightening that Santorum is touting and the Democrats say isn't there -- might go away.
Either way, Casey's lead is nothing to sneeze at.
Posted at 02:11 PM
Comments
Casey and Reiff have been smart to hold off on the TV until after LD, when HUT levels begin to rise again, albeit not the way they used to, in the pre-Internet days.
No doubt the Casey camp will start to hammer on many of Rick's negatives, of which there are many. Warm, fuzzy, family-Rick only has a week or so left in which to dance the PA polka....
Pilt
Piltdown Man | 08.22.06 03:53 PM
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I wonder if all of these ferociously anti immigrant right wingers could go back a few centuries, would they administer the same rules to their great grandparents immigrating. The answer is no. All you had to do back then was show up and you were a citizen, because you were white your in. And don't say that current immigrants are taking jobs, your ancestors not only took jobs but land and lives. The rules change according to race and it sickens me. Remember that Mexicans are half Native American. They lost this land unjustly and don't deserve this treatment.
Gilberto | 08.23.06 10:15 AM
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