Critz Defeats Altmire in Pennsylvania; Holden Loses

While Mitt Romney was putting the finishing touches on a five-state sweep that will end all doubt about his prospects to become the Republican presidential nominee, Pennsylvania voters also chose statewide nominees and general election candidates from their new congressional districts.

The GOP nominated businessman Tom Smith in the Senate race. Mr. Smith, backed by Pennsylvania Tea Party organizations, invested more than $5 million of his own money in order to advertise heavily throughout the state. The move paid off as he racked up a 40-22-20 percent win over former state Rep. Sam Rohrer, who was the director of the Pennsylvania chapter of Americans for Prosperity, and businessman Steven Welch who enjoyed the support of Gov. Tom Corbett and the state Republican Party establishment. Smith now faces Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D) in the general election and will find tough going in challenging the man who unseated then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R) by more than 18 points six years ago.

In the 12th Congressional District race that featured an incumbent pairing between Democrats Jason Altmire (D-PA-4) and Mark Critz (D-PA-12), the hard-fought campaign culminated in a close victory for Critz. The three-term Altmire had the advantage of already representing just over 63 percent of the new 12th district, versus Critz who saw only 29 percent of his constituency carry over to the new seat. Both candidates were on their way to spending more than $1.5 million for the primary contest.

Considering he began the campaign with with a severe name ID deficit, the 52-48 percent win is an impressive one for Critz and again proves that appealing to the base voter in either party with the fundamental party message is usually successful. Since the new 12th is only a 45 percent Obama district, Republican Keith Rothfus, who held Altmire to a 51-49 percent victory in 2010, certainly will have the opportunity to run a competitive general election campaign against Critz, who may have just positioned himself outside of his new electorate’s mainstream.

In the eastern part of the state, Rep. Tim Holden fell to his Democratic primary challenger. Carrying over just 21 percent of his previous constituency to the new 17th District put Mr. Holden and attorney Matt Cartwright at parity. Raising and spending well over $700,000, the wealthy liberal activist prevailed with an impressive 57-43 percent win, thus bringing the Representative’s 20-year congressional career to an end.

In the open 4th District, all of the real action was in the Republican primary, because the GOP nominee becomes the prohibitive general election favorite in a seat that gave over 55 percent of its votes to John McCain in the 2008 presidential contest. Last night, state Rep. Scott Perry, an Iraq War veteran, swept every county in the new district and scored an overwhelming 54-19-14 percent victory over York County Commissioner Chris Reilly, who enjoyed the public endorsement of Sen. Pat Toomey (R), and attorney Sean Summers, respectively. Perry will now face mechanical engineer Harry Perkinson, who scored 56 percent in the Democratic primary. Mr. Perry will now become the next congressman.

With the Altmire and Holden defeats, 48 House incumbents have either announced their retirements, are running for other offices, resigned their seats, passed away, or have been defeated for renomination. The Holden defeat now brings the grand total of House open seats to 58.

Advertisement

Democratic Senators in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Looking Good

Democrats got two pieces of good news in the past few days from states where they fared poorly in 2010. In Michigan, former Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI-2) closed the door on a potential Senate bid against two-term incumbent Debbie Stabenow (D) by saying he will not run statewide next year. Hoekstra left the House in 2010 to seek the governor’s office, but lost the primary to eventual general election winner Rick Snyder. Stabenow is perceived to be vulnerable in 2012, but so far no strong potential opponent has yet stepped forward to challenge her.

In Pennsylvania, Public Policy Polling (April 7-10; 493 registered Pennsylvania voters) just released a new statewide poll that shows Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (D) doing very well against all name Republican potential candidates. The person faring best, though giving no indication that he will run again, is former Sen. Rick Santorum (R) who Casey defeated 59-41 percent in 2006. But, even this match-up isn’t particularly close. According to PPP, Casey leads Santorum 49-37 percent. Though he fares well on the ballot test questions, the senator has some potential vulnerabilities. Casey’s job approval index tallies just 39:35 percent, and among Democrats is only 55:22 percent. A long time remains between now and the candidate filing deadline, so expect the action to soon pick up in both of these states.
___________________________________________________
For further detailed insights, to sign up for my daily email updates, or to sign up to track specific issues or industries, please contact me at PRIsm@performanceandresults.com.

Suspect PA Senate Numbers

Public Policy Polling just released new data from their most recent Pennsylvania Senate poll (1/3-5; 547 registered PA voters), but the small size of the sampling universe leads us to question the validity of the results.

The survey shows Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (D) easily defeating all potential opponents including former Sen. Rick Santorum (R), the man he ousted from the seat in 2006. Though Santorum has made no overt move to seek a re-match, he actually polls the best in the field of potential Republican candidates. Mr. Santorum, however, is the only person in the Republican field who has significant statewide name identification.

What makes the poll suspect, however, is not that it shows Sen. Casey to be performing well — that’s believable, since Pennsylvania still favors Democrats in statewide races (the election of 2010 notwithstanding), and he has not been the focal point of any controversy or scandal during his first term in office. Rather, it is his potential opponents’ favorability scores that seem wildly out of whack.

According to the PPP poll, Casey would defeat Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA-15) 51-31%; Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA-6) 49-33%; Santorum 48-41%; former Lt. Gov. Mark Schweiker 47-34%; and unknown attorney Mark Scaringi, the only announced Republican candidate, 50-27%. For an incumbent re-election race, especially in a situation where the senator is a member of the state’s majority party, these seem to be credible numbers. But, the depicted views of his opponents are not.

In our opinion, the poll’s accuracy factor seriously deteriorates when looking at the potential Casey opponents. Both Republican congressmen, Dent and Gerlach, score very poorly within this sampling universe. Dent gets an incredibly low 6:18% favorability rating, and Gerlach is only slightly better at 9:17%. The fact that 3/4 of the respondents haven’t heard of them is believable, but what could each have done to make them so unpopular?

The answer is nothing, hence, these numbers make little sense. The likely reason for the faulty results is that only 136 members of the polling universe could even identify them. In raw number terms, it is likely that only eight people said something positive about Dent versus just 24 who viewed him unfavorably. These are far below the minimum cell size to accurately forecast a result, especially in a state the size of Pennsylvania. Thus, the poll is trying to suggest that the opinions of 32 people are accurately depicting the feelings of an electorate of almost nine million voters.

Small-sample polling can be tricky because it bases conclusions upon very small pools of data. Though the Casey ballot test numbers certainly are in the realm of the possible, it is unlikely that all of the potential Republican candidates are viewed so negatively, especially when name ID is exceedingly low and their party just scored a big victory. More Pennsylvania polls will have to be taken before an accurate picture of Sen. Casey’s political health can be determined.