PA: PPP: Sestak +1

[Tender Branson]

Good, if true ...

[Tender Branson]

Also notice that Sam Spade said that when looking into the internals, the Rasmussen poll showing a 10-point Toomey lead seemed really off to him ...

[Tender Branson]

Meh, if Mason-Dixon or SUSA could just poll this race ...

[Tender Branson]

At least Sestak did what Santorum never did in 2006: lead in a poll slightly before the election ...

[Tender Branson]

Also notice that Sam Spade said that when looking into the internals, the Rasmussen poll showing a 10-point Toomey lead seemed really off to him ...

I also tend not to believe the D/R spread is going to be the same as 2008.

Depends. What if there will be no such thing as an "enthusiasm gap" in PA ?

[Tender Branson]

Look, this was PPP's final 2008 poll:

They had 51% Democrats, 42% Republicans and 7% Independents (Obama+8).

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/surveys/2008_Archives/PPP_Release_Pennnsylvania_1102582.pdf

This poll is 48% Democrats, 41% Republicans and 11% Independents.

...

The 2008 Exit Poll was 44% Democrats, 37% Republicans and 18% Independents (Obama+11).

...

PPP doesn´t weight the party ID, it´s what people tell them at the phone. And of course people are more likely to say to a robot on the phone that they are either a Democrat or a Republican, while they are more likely to say "Independent" when they are asked by a human after they exited the polling station. Simply put: these figures are not comparable really.

As evidenced above, the Exit poll was less Democratic than PPP's sample, yet Obama won by 11 compared with 8 in PPP's poll.

...

All that matters is that Sestak can get his share up to 85-90% among Democrats and do about as well as Toomey does with Independents and he could win.

[Tender Branson]

Starting tomorrow morning the Morning Call/Muhlenberg College begins tracking daily the Senate and governor races. That poll in May was the first indicator that Sestak was gaining and then surpassing Arlen Specter.

http://blogs.mcall.com/penn_ave/2010/10/sestak-gaining-on-toomey.html

[Tender Branson]

Not buying it. Perhaps it is narrowing, though.

We should know tomorrow when the Muhlenberg tracker is released.

[Tender Branson]

Not buying it. Perhaps it is narrowing, though.

We should know tomorrow when the Muhlenberg tracker is released.

Good to know that comes out soon. I didn't want to wait another week or so and wait for confirmation. What are your estimates on the race? I was fairly certain that Toomey would win by about seven or eight points.

A couple of weeks ago I was also certain that Toomey would win this by about 5-10% and still think he´s somewhat ahead. I´d like to see at least 3 polls or so with a slight Sestak lead to make any conclusions. But it seems that Sestak is gaining ground with the base in recent weeks. I remember last year when all the polls had Corzine at 70% among Democrats, but on Election Day he got 86% support then. He got killed among Independents though (70-30). The main differences between New Jersey and Pennsylvania are that there are far less Independents in PA than in NJ, so it matters more for Sestak to drive home his base. Currently he gets about 75-80% of Democrats and he should get between 85-90% to have a chance against Toomey. Besides, it looks like - contrary to Corzine - that Sestak is doing much better with the Independents. This PPP poll has him tied with Toomey among Indies and the last Muhlenberg poll had him also tied. I don´t know the internals from Rasmussen, but if he ends up tied with Toomey among Indies on Election Day, he might have a good shot at winning this. Besides, you also have to remember that Sestak came from behind in the DEM primary and almost nobody thought he´d have a shot ...