The Keystone State is one of those light-blue states that Republicans
vie for every four years, but ends up voting Democratic. At least, that has
been the pattern since 1992. The GOP got a boost from this state in 2010;
Republican’s took a Democratic Senate seat, won an open gubernatorial race and
took control of four House seats. Now Quinnipiac is out
with a poll of registered voters (as opposed to likely voters) that shows
Pennsylvania voters do not believe President Obama deserves reelection by a
52-42 margin.
This sets up a race next year in which it is highly likely
that the national committees, candidate’s committees and a host of outside
groups will sink a lot of cash into this state. But this is not 1988, and the
Democratic registration in P.A. favors the President heavily. It seems likely that
the Democrats will pull that football out just in time for the GOP to land flat
on their backs … again.
Gallup:
Ideological ID Steady, Means Little
Interesting
Data from the Garden State in an Election Year
2012
GOP Survey Likely More Accurate Than Most
The reason Republicans should be cautious about investing
heavily in Pennsy is more than just its history or voter registration. As seems
to be the case nationally, the Republican brand has suffered a setback among
voters who see their intransigence in the debt ceiling debate as proxy for their
governing style, which is distasteful to the nation’s centrists who view
compromise as paramount. 44 percent of respondents believe that the President
acted “more responsibly” in the debt debate than did Congressional Republicans. Only 37 percent thought that Republicans were
the more responsible party in those debates.
What will make Pennsylvania a battleground, however, is the
president’s head-to-head numbers. In a Romney vs. Obama race, Romney takes 44
percent of the vote to Obama’s 42. What about the 14 percent of undecided
voters, you say? Well, incumbent politicians really need to hit the 50 percent
support mark or else they are in trouble—independent voters and undeciededs
tend to break for the challenger if they are still undecided. However,
undecideds, especially in a highly visible presidential race are as likely to
be squishy independents as they are disaffected party members that are ashamed
to tell a pollster that they will vote against their party’s nominee.
Surprisingly, former Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Rick
Santorum, who has polled dismally nationally, runs close to Obama in the Quinnipiac
poll. Obama leads Santorum by a statistically meaningless two points (45-43
percent). Strangely, Santorum’s 18-point loss to Sen. Bob Casey in 2006, which
has been a liability for Santorum nationally, does not seem to register much in
P.A. Furthermore, traditionally Democratic unionized households in Central and
Western Pennsylvania seem warm to Santorum.
This goes to show just how demoralized the Rust Belt region
is and what a problem that will be for the president and the Democratic Party.
I could have written the same article about Michigan or Ohio. If the President loses
this 20-electoral vote state, he will have to make up ground elsewhere and
there seem to be fewer and fewer candidates from the “expanded
map of 2008” that are ready to reprise their role as red states for Obama
in 2012.
Follow Noah Rothman @Noah_C_Rothman
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