Franklin and Marshall’s latest poll shows that former Revenue Secretary Tom Wolf leads the pack of Democratic gubernatorial candidates by a wide margin.
In this poll, Wolf took 36%, Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz took 9%, State Treasurer Rob McCord took 3%, and the DEP Secretaries Katie McGinty and John Hanger tied at 1%.
Former Auditor General Jack Wagner, the latest entry into the race, was not polled.
Just under three months away from the election, 48% of voters surveyed said they were still undecided about their pick in the Democratic primary.
The results mirror the findings of Harper Polling survey released Tuesday.
F&M also surveyed the permeation of Wolf’s television ads amongst the survey respondents: 65% of registered Democrats have seen a television commercial for governor, and almost all (88%) of these respondents have seen a Wolf advertisement.
Wolf had spent over $1 million on television when this poll was conducted, compared to virtually nothing by his opponents.
Among those who have seen Wolf’s ads, 56% say that he is their choice for governor, and he is the only candidate to maintain double digit support after seeing one of his ads, which means those who have seen him on TV are likely to favor him.
Among those who have not seen a Wolf television ad, Schwartz leads the hypothetical primary with 13%, followed by Wolf at 11%, McCord at 5%, 4% for some other candidate and 68% undecided.
Wolf and Schwartz are far ahead of their competitors in favorability and by transient property, name recognition. 44% of respondents had a favorable view of Wolf, and just 47% responded that they didn’t know. 28% of respondents had a favorable view of Schwartz and 60% didn’t know.
While these are still large fields of indecision, by comparison McCord and McGinty have 81% and 86% of registered voters unsure.
Wolf’s support ideologically is much the same as the Harper Poll, 36% of self-identified liberals support him, 37% of moderates and 37% of conservatives. His closest challenger in any ideological category was Schwartz, who won 12% of liberal respondents.
In addition to registered voters who haven’t seen a Wolf ad, Schwartz leads in one other category – young voters. 20% of the under-30 category supports her, compared to just 9% for Wolf and between 1-2% for any other candidate.
Geographically, Wolf’s support extends beyond his home Central region, where he takes 45%. In Philly, he takes 30% compared to Schwartz’s 19%. In the Southeast, he takes 39% compared to Schwartz’s 16%. And in Allegheny, thought to be a Wagner stronghold, Wolf took 39% and 4% of respondents chose another candidate not listed.
Franklin and Marshall surveyed 548 registered Democrats from Feb. 18 to 23. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.2%.
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26 Responses
@David Ding Dong Diano I was simply asking you a question and wasn’t looking for a fight (so that’s how well your perception is). If your website is so fantastic, it should never crash. Furthermore, you love to call me fake liberal, but here you are still supporting a venture capitalist like McCord and centrist turncoats like Specter. It’s amazing to me how you scroll through all these posts on here looking to answer any individual that has something to say about Sestak anytime an article appears about him or Kane. You wanna talk about bad info? Look at the way you vote and who you’ve been supporting!!!…:-/
Did any one ever think that once Joe Voter has seen a Tom Wolf add on TV, maybe they clicked his name on their computer and read into him a bit more. I think the political wonks on here short change the rest of the electorate because they dont have time to chat on here.
Eric Bradway former Lower Merion Township Constable will win the Democratic Primary for Governor
I don’t know if Tom Wolf’s 4 minutes of commercials have completely swayed me yet, but I do know that Corbett’s 4 years of failure and his stupid, insensitive comments have swayed me that Pennsylvania will be better off once he is G O N E!
Labor doesn’t matter yet and might not in this race, I don’t see them putting millions into communicating with their members about McCord and even then, these members don’t care what their $300,000 salaried business manager thinks about an individual who has been stroking the BM and BA’s egos for years. Banking on labor is always a risk.
Fake liberal,
Site is fine. Was down for an hour last week due to problem with cloud server, and rebooted after 430 days of continuous operation. You must have bad link (which seems to go with your bad information).
I still like McCord and I’m fine with Wolf as well. Any of the candidates are better than Corbett.
Pete a. –
There are plenty of businesses that don’t need unions, if the workers are treated well. Unions are needed for collective bargaining and improving bad conditions. Profit sharing is better than any union deal.
@Frank. I’m a State Committee Member , and even I have to admit, we don’t have to best track record lately of picking winners, just ask Lt. Governor Saidel and the Late Senator
Specter (God Rest his soul). The poll matches the Harper poll that was released earlier in the week. Keep in mind that polls are only a snapshot in time. That’s all they reflect. Where they do hurt candidate is in their fundraising. Donors see this, and they may not want to back a candidate who is polling at 3%, and it has to hurt a candidate who has run statewide twice that his name ID is that low. That’s where the polling numbers hurt.
@pete a.
Wrong. Wolf was endorsed by the IBEW Local in York, Pennsylvania. Unlike McCord and Schwartz, Wolf has not spent years trying to gain support from union locals because, unlike them, Wolf has never run for office before. Were all the companies McCord invested in as a venture capitalist, or as State Treasurer, unionized? Nah. Was the women’s health clinic Schwartz founded and ran before she was an elected official unionized? Nope.
Wolf’s company is not unionized. But has Wolf opposed any attempts to unionize? No, he has not. Would he oppose any of his employee attempt to unionize? Wolf has said many times that he would not oppose any efforts to unionize. Why is his company not unionized? Ask any of his employees and they will tell you they don’t want to unionize because they are treated very well and get great benefits. Oh yeah, Wolf directs up to 30% of company profits to rank and file workers when he certainly doesn’t have to. Does your employer do that? Probably not.
But why would you let learning the facts for yourself get in the way of somebody else telling you what to think, right?
as a union member this guy scares me not one union endorsement from what i heard his company is non union why would he be any different than corbett.
with all mccords committee support and union support how can he poll 3percent not sure i buy into this poll
Propaganda should have a negative connotation because it is not truth. I can sell you Happy Meals which are fun for kids and not tell you that your children will be malnourished, diabetic and overweight if they eat them. Propaganda is why you have hope and change organize the systemic shutdown of Occupy and the murder of innocents from drone strikes all across the Arab world.
The word propaganda, no matter how officially defined, has a negative connotation.
“When I use a word, “said Humpty Dumpty in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean.”
This confused poor Alice who thought that dictionaries provided the common meaning of words.
@David Diano You sound pretty leftist today talking about the 99%. Are you still in the McCord camp or are you in the Wolf Pack now? (Just asking) Btw…I looked at your website for some voter database info and I couldn’t pull it up. Is it still down?
Hannah
It is common understanding that propaganda is used to describe false and misleading content.
Stating “the sky is blue” would not be considered propaganda (outside of China).
My 14 yr old son knows propaganda they teach it in civics class self promotion is propaganda its hard to catch a wolf they run fast and have lots of supporters that hang in packs mom was right money is everything.
Propaganda (dictionary) is disseminating information to promote a cause. It does not matter if the cause is just or unjust or if the information is true or untrue. Mr. W. is pushing information to promote his candidacy. He is engaging in propaganda. And, apparently, 40% of the primary electorate has made a choice after hearing his propaganda.
billy mays-
Propaganda? You must be referring to Corbett’s ads where he mischaracterizes the Dem candidates and their positions.
Wolf’s ads are mostly biographical and state his priorities. His work in Peace Corp, driving a forklift, working on a farm, building a business and profit sharing with his employees are all indications that he’s actually met, worked with and lived with “the 99%”. Voters are bothered by the out-of-touch politicians who cater to the 1% and are looking for a candidate who understands their issues and knows they exists.
The voters overwhelmingly believe that Corbett doesn’t care about them.
If you can demonstrate that Wolf isn’t the guy he presented himself as in the commercial, then (and only then) can you call it “propaganda”.
Again, proof positive that the most politically aware subset of Americans … the likely primary voter … is capable of being persuaded based on 4 one minute pieces of propaganda repeated endlessly. This is not a criticism of Mr. W or any other candidate. It is a statement about the attention span and pliability of the U.S.A. Again, it explains how Guantanamo is still open and holding people without trial or even charges for 10 years, why Snowden is on the run, how no one from Wall Street has gone to jail, and how the nation could have added 15 trillion to the national debt in 10 years and the standard of living for most Americans has declined. We are now number 38 in press freedom. USA USA USA. They hate us for our freedoms.t
The question is: how late can non-Wolf start ads before Wolf’s lead solidifies?
It’s 12 weeks until the election.
Do ads prior to 3-4 weeks ahead of the election matter?
Wolf has bet several million that they do.
These numbers have no baring on reality. As more ads air, they will shift rapidly, and McCord has a very good chance at the nomination and everyone knows it. But, feel free to bash him all you want, for all the good it does.
Im sure this race will tighten up as soon as the others go on tv and corbett hammers wolf but to see schwartz at 9% and mccord at 3% my question is they should have not let wolf have a free ride for weeks if u dont have money to run then drop out.its gonna be real hard to catch a wolf they run fast.
Im also a hanger supporter. But if hanger loses I’d be proud to have tom wolf as my nominee and governor hands down. If it comes down to a super close primary and hanger isn’t in the mix in the end ill pull the lever for wolf or mccord or who ever needs more votes bc we cant have Allison as our nominee.
Almost time for rob mccord to fold up his tent take the 1.7 million dollar loss and give his support to someone else if they would want it 3 percent is embarrassing for a sitting state treasure.not to late to join the wolf pack.
As a John Hanger supporter, I welcome the results of this poll. It shows, frankly, how ridiculous polls can be. This race is wide open and the only poll that actually matters in on May 20, when voters go to the polls and cast a vote– not answer a telephone survey.
Wagner changes this poll a little, probably takes 7-10% from the undecided. This poll shows McCord at 3%, that is insane. Rob has spent millions on tv in the last 6 years and has received tons of earned media. He has dangerously low name id and some of the worst polling numbers a “contender” has ever had. It is time to separate the contenders from the wannabes. If McCord spends his money to destroy Wolf and Schwartz, it might be just what Corbett needs.