In the four-man race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Dan Onroato leads his closest competitor by 27 points, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday, another sign the Allegheny County executive has pulled away from his rivals.
Onorato received 36 percent support in the poll, compared to 9 percent for Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel and 8 percent for state Senator Anthony Williams and Auditor General Jack Wagner. It’s the second poll this week to show him with a huge edge over his competition.
The Democratic front-runner has been able to, on the strength of the more than $6 million on hand he had to begin April, blanket the state’s TV airwaves with ads in the last month, and it has clearly paid off for him. Onorato pulled only 20 percent in the same poll last month, five points higher than his closest rival.
Only Williams has been able to match Onorato’s ad campaign, but the state senator hasn’t seen much of a bump in the polls from his effort. The survey last month showed his with 5 percent support, just three points fewer than the one released Tuesday.
“Onorato has outspent his opponents on the campaign trail, especially on television, and it shows in the results,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Although only slightly more than half of likely voters know enough about him to have an opinion, 46 – 5 percent favorable, 73 to 77 percent of Democrats don’t know enough about any of the other three to have an opinion about them.
At this point, less than 20 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of Wagner, Hoeffel or Williams,” he said. “That is a big advantage for Onorato entering the home stretch of the campaign.”
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