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Thursday, May 11, 2006

Pennsylvania: Casey leads Santorum among independent voters; Russ Diamond disappears from polls

Casey maintains poll lead over Santorum

MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press HARRISBURG, Pa. - The number of Pennsylvania voters who think U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum deserves re-election dropped to 37 percent in a statewide poll released Thursday.
Santorum's numbers also fell in job performance and favorability, and he slipped slightly farther behind in a head-to-head matchup against the leading Democratic candidate, Bob Casey.
Respondents in the Quinnipiac University Poll favored Casey over Republican Santorum by 49 percent to 36 percent. A Quinnipiac survey released early last month had Casey ahead, 48-37.
Casey led among men, women, Democrats, independent voters and in six of seven geographic regions. Republicans overwhelmingly favored Santorum, and he led by one percentage point overall in the state's central region....
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Rendell, Casey hold on in polls; lawmakers take a beating over pay-raise

Thursday, May 11, 2006By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

...The Strategic Vision and Keystone polls were consistent about the standing of Russ Diamond, the independent candidate for governor. Mr. Diamond, former leader of PA CleanSweep who only recently entered the race, got 3 percent. The IssuesPA/Pew poll didn't mention him.
The Strategic Vision poll had Mr. Rendell ahead of his challenger by the same margin that the likely Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Bob Casey Jr., leads his opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, 49 to 41 percent....
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40 comments:

Anonymous said...

Three recent polls have this race at either 8 or 6 points. Considering Casey’s history of losing tough races big time I would be never vote for him in any primary esp not one so important. Which BTW is Tuesday the 16 (MAY).

Chuck Pennacchio is clearly the Dems best chance to defeat Sen Man on Dog. Chuck has experience winning tougher campaigns for US Senators Alan Cranston, Tim Wirth and Paul Simon. Also he has successfully managed 2 US Presidential primaries (statewide). In this race he has over 6,000 volunteers with county level organizations throughout the state.

As so much polling has indicated (as well as history) drawing a clear distinction from Santorum is the only way to beat him. Quinnipiac and Rasmussen have multiple polls out showing Casey being defeated by 5-7% in favor of Santorum once people realize niether are pro-choice.

If your wondering if this could really happen the answer is that it has many times already. Firstly Casey led Rendell by 17 points and lost by 12. Also the last candidate we challenged Santorum with was not pro-choice, had tons of money, party support and great name recognition, he lost by 5 points I believe. In fact we’ve run someone who meets that general description in almost all US Senate races against anti-choice Republicans here in PA and we Dems have not won since 1962 when we ran a real progressive candidate named Joe Clark.

www.chuck2006.com/caseyfacts.asp

Nancy Hanks said...

Austin -- thanks for your insight into the PA race. In terms of the polls, what I was particularly struck by is the fact that one day I see a poll which shows outsider/non-politician type Russ Diamond running for gov as an independent at 16%; the next day I see a different poll that shows Diamond at 3%; the next day he's nowhere to be found.

As the above article says:
"The Strategic Vision and Keystone polls were consistent about the standing of Russ Diamond, the independent candidate for governor. Mr. Diamond, former leader of PA CleanSweep who only recently entered the race, got 3 percent. The IssuesPA/Pew poll didn't mention him.

The Strategic Vision poll had Mr. Rendell ahead of his challenger by the same margin that the likely Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Bob Casey Jr., leads his opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, 49 to 41 percent.

Mr. Santorum in recent months had regularly trailed Mr. Casey by double digits.

Polls often vary in their results because different methods are used."

Yes, polls often vary because the independents are left out.

I'm not so familiar with the particular race you are talking about between the incumbent Repub Rendell and the challenger Dem Casey. Both are old-time clubhouse politicians and a vote for either seems to me would help perpetuate an outrageously undemocratic system constructed by a 2-party monopoloy that will defend to the death the right to tell voters who they can vote for, when and where, and what issues are worth fighting for.

I'm sympathetic to the Throw the Incumbents out campaigns that are active in Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere, but unless we have alternatives -- candidates, parties, movements, little groupings of ordinary people, whatever type of alternatives we can create ourselves -- we will be stuck with the old "lesser of 2 evils" voting system.

I am also sympathetic to a progressive agenda, I am pro-choice, I am outspoken on human rights of all kinds. My issue here is, when are progressives going to stop taking the bait and come up to the plate on the core issue of our time -- the Democratic Party is not the party of the people, it's the party of special interests in very distressed liberal rags. We have to create something new and it needs to be independent of both major parties.

Jake said...

n.hanks said:

the Democratic Party is not the party of the people, it's the party of special interests in very distressed liberal rags. We have to create something new and it needs to be independent of both major parties.

I'm beginning to think you may be right; I've been working for Pennacchio, but it's been nothing but fighting 'Democrats' all the way. Progressives may have to get a divorce from the party based on irreconcilable differences.

Check out the Pennacchio Ad.

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