Pa. voters give positive marks to President Barack Obama on the second week of his second term, according to the latest survey from Quinnipiac.
51% said they approve the job he’s doing while 46% disapprove – about the same as it was 2 weeks after his re-election in Q-pac’s November survey.
Democrats and Republicans fall mostly on partisan lines, with about 90 percent approving Obama and vice versa for the GOP. But he’s got problems in the center: independent voters disapprove 52% to 42%.
The President also has a wide gender gap among men. While women approve his job performance 57% to 40%, men disapprove 53% to 44% – a total gap of 26 points.
The Democratic label itself is in positive territory in Pa., albeit barely. 43% said they had a favorable impression of the Democratic party and 42% said unfavorable. Independents were unfavorable 47% to 33%.
Respondents said they had a negative impression of the Republican party by a starker margin: 55% to 29%. They did worse with independents, who went negative 57% to 24%. And interestingly, the Republican party did much worse with Republican voters than the Democrats did.
21% of Republicans have an unfavorable impression of their own party, compared to just 7% of Democrats who felt unfavorably about theirs.
These numbers are from the second release by Quinnipiac from the same poll, conducted from Jan. 22 to 27 using live interviewers calling landlines. The margin of error for the survey of 1,221 registered voters is plus or minus 2.8%. Pa. polls that use registration numbers rather than algorithms based on likely voters tend to favor Democrats by a few points and disadvantage Republicans compared to election results.
If Pa. voters had their say today, three of President Obama’s top gun control priorities would become law.
According to the latest poll from Quinnipiac, Pa. has near-unanimous public support for universal background checks (95% to 5%) and healthy support for a ban on assault weapons (60% to 37%) and high capacity magazine clips (59% to 39%).
Respondents who identified as gun owners also supported universal background checks (95% to 4%) but opposed an assault weapons ban (51% to 45%) and magazine restrictions (57% to 41%).
All three are measures supported by Obama, who intensified his focus on gun violence in the wake of the December school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
As the number show however, universal background checks stand the strongest chance of success. Alengthy report this month by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Moriah Balingit detailed one example why: John Shick, the man who shot several people at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Oakland in March 2012, had navigated haphazard background check laws to obtain his guns.
57% of respondents said Pa. gun control laws should be stricter, 35% said they should remain as-is, and 4% said they should be less strict. 60% favored stricted federal gun control laws (and 32% the same, 5% less strict).
Asked, “Who do you trust more to make the right decisions about gun laws, the Republicans in Congress or President Obama?” respondents chose Obama 47% to 38%.
“Pennsylvanians join voters in Virginia and New Jersey, states where Quinnipiac University has found overwhelming support for background checks for every gun purchase,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Keystone State voters, especially voters in urban areas, seem to have had enough of gun violence. By large margins, voters don’t think assault weapons belong in the hands of any gun owner. Restrict the firepower of assault weapons or ban them entirely, Pennsylvanians say.”
The survey found 49 % of respondents believe gun ownership protects people from becoming victims of crime compared to 40% who said ownership puts people at risk. But that stops with semi-automatic assault rifles like that used in Newtown. 61% of respondents said those make the country more dangerous. Just 28% said they make the country safer.
The idea of having armed guards at schools would do more to reduce gun violence in schools than stricter 46% to 42%.
By a margin of 35% to 31%, respondents said they had an unfavorable impression of the National Rifle Association.
These numbers are the second release by Quinnipiac from the same survey, conducted from Jan. 22 to 27 using live interviewers calling landlines. The margin of error for the poll of 1,221 registered voters is plus or minus 2.8%. Pa. polls that use registration numbers rather than algorithms based on likely voters tend to favor Democrats by a few points and disadvantage Republicans compared to election results.
Yesterday’s releaseshowed Gov. Tom Corbett’s re-election numbers in trouble driven by a wide gender gap.
By a 30 point margin, Pennsylvania’s women voters say Tom Corbett does not deserve a second term in the Governor’s mansion. The massive gender gap is mirrored in his job approval numbers, too.
That’s according to the latest poll from the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Overall 51% of respondents said he does not deserve to be re-elected compared to 31% who said he does. Men went against him by 10 points, 48% to 38%, while women oppose a second Corbett term by 30 points 54% to 24% (total gender gap: 20 points).
Other crosstabs don’t offer much comfort. Independents sided against the Gov. 51% to 31% and Democrats 68% to 17%. Not even a majority of Republicans said yes. They’d re-elect him 49% to 29%. He loses that question among every demographic and regional category.
Voters disapprove of the job he’s doing as Governor 42% to 36%, an 8 point slide from Quinnipiac’s November 15 poll. While men approve 41% to 37%, women disapprove 45% to 31% (total gender gap: 18 points).
“It’s halftime in Gov. Tom Corbett’s first term and if he were running a football team instead of a state, he’d fire his offensive coordinator,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
“Gov. Corbett has hit the 50 percent approval rating only once so far, mainly because of his bad grades from women.”
Aside a few bright spots related to his disaster recovery efforts in 2011, Corbett has consistently suffered a big deficit with women voters. Efforts to soften his image have apparently not been successful.
Quinnipiac surveyed 1,221 registered Pa. voters from Jan. 22 to 27 using live interviewers calling landlines. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.8%. Polls that use registration numbers rather than algorithms based on likely voters tend to favor Democrats by a few points and disadvantage Republicans.
Penn State
Perhaps the most interesting single topic of the 2014 gubernatorial race will be the Penn State scandal. It has the potential to be an X-factor that works outside normal political lines.
If it does become a salient issue in the campaign, Corbett has catching up to do. Voters disapprove his handling of the situation – first as Pa. Attorney General then as Governor – by a 50% to 26% margin (with no significant gender gap). It’s worse in households where someone attends or has graduated from Penn State. Those voters disapprove 59% to 23%.
The Governor’s lawsuit is marginally popular, 41% to 37%, driven largely by the fact that 53% of voters said the NCAA’s sanctions on Penn State were too severe. 28% said the penalties were appropriate in light of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
Miscellaneous
Both Pa. U.S. Senators are in tepidly positive territory, according to the poll. Voters approve Sen. Bob Casey 44% to 36% and Sen. Pat Toomey 43% to 25%.
The state legislature gets negative marks: voters disapprove of its job performance by 13 points, 46% to 33%.
Governor Tom Corbett is slated announce his transportation plan on February 5th. The proposal will include ways to increase funding for public transportation, roads, and bridges.
One suggested way to generate funds for the planned projects is the removal of the cap on the oil company franchise tax.
Wholesale gasoline taxes are currently limited to $1.25 per gallon. According to the Corbett administration, the profits from uncapping the gas tax could eventually yield up to $2 billion per year, which would go a long way toward raising the $2.5 billion currently needed to fix transportation in the state.
Do you support Governor Corbett's plan to remove the cap on taxes paid by gasoline wholesalers?
Yes, this will help restore much needed funding to Pennsylvania transportation. (75%)
Out of 665 voters, 348 of them were pessimistic about re-election for Corbett and think that voters will see the lawsuit as a political move. 92 voters thought it would affect his re-election positively, regardless of whether is lawsuit is seen as political or not.
Will Corbett’s NCAA Lawsuit Boost His Re-election Chances?
No. Voters will see this as a political move. (52%)
No. His numbers are too far gone. (18%)
Yes. Even if voters think the suit is political. (14%)
Depends on whether he wins the case. (8%)
Yes. This will help him win over Penn State alumni. (8%)
More than a quarter million of Pennsylvania’s residents are Penn State alumni and their backing of the lawsuit appears to be rooted in the issue itself and does not imply confidence in Corbett, whose handling of the Sandusky case in 2009 was widely criticized.
First Niagara Financial Group released its Fourth Annual Survey of Pennsylvania Business Leaders today and the results are not encouraging.
The survey was conducted by the Siena College Research Institute and the results were based on the responses of 715 Pennsylvania business leaders whose overall expectations for 2012 were not met and therefore are have lowered their expectations for the economy in 2013.
The business leaders sampled were from Pennsylvania’s major metropolitan areas of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton, Altoona, Harrisburg, Erie, Lancaster, Reading, and York. They represent CEOs, CFOs, and senior managers of private companies whose sales span $5 million to $200 million annually. The companies selected were from a variety of industries such as manufacturing, retail, engineering, and food and beverage.
Robert Kane, the Eastern Pennsylvania regional president for First Niagara shed some light on the real life ramifications of last year’s economic shortcomings.
“Many Pennsylvania business executives indicated their dissatisfaction with how the economy played out in 2012 for them versus their earlier expectations, so they have adopted a more critical outlook moving ahead in 2013… They are continuing to focus on growing their businesses but in a financially realistic way given the ‘new normal’ they have been dealing with.”
Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was 7.9 percent as of December, a hair above the national average of 7.8 percent. It’s the second time since the recession began that Pa. is doing worse the the country at large (the Commonwealth was 0.4 percent above national in September 2012).
The results of this year’s survey show a marked difference in business leaders’ outlooks compared with last year. This year, 32 percent of those surveyed expect a change in economic conditions and 36 percent expect those conditions to stay the same as last year. In 2012, 42 percent of those surveyed had positive expectations for the year, expectations that were not fulfilled.
Western Pennsylvania regional president for First Niagara was cautiously optimistic despite the survey results saying, “Even as their confidence levels have dropped from last year, these business leaders are still primed to grow their businesses as the economy improves.”
A race between incumbent Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and City Councilman Bill Peduto would come down to single digits in a Pittsburgh mayoral primary, according to research by the organization Civic Science.
But the group emphasized that it was not releasing head-to-head numbers for the two candidates, and acknowledged that their data is out of date; a third candidate, City Controller Michael Lamb, entered the race last week.
“The purpose of this analysis was NOT to forecast the election outcome. It’s too early, given that new people are still entering the race,” the group wrote. “All we will say right now is that a hypothetical two-way race between Ravenstahl and Peduto would be close, within single-digit percentage points if the election was held today. There’s also still a large Undecided group, about 19% of voters.”
Civic Science’smethodology is new. They build profiles of individual voters by aggregating online survey responses that they direct. with existing data (voter registration meets internet history).
The data set for this poll includes 1,651 registered Democrats and was collected from Dec. 30 to Jan. 16 (the day before Lamb officially entered the race). Former Pa. Auditor General Jack Wagner is also rumored to be considering a bid.
The organization broke down the Ravenstahl v. Peduto race among a variety of demographic categories, and a few tidbits stand out:
Ravenstahl has a clear advantage among voters over age 65 and, oddly, sees strong support among those aged 30 to 34. Peduto, meanwhile, leads handily among respondents under age 30 and has a slight advantage among those aged 35 to 44.
Black voters are 20% more likely to vote for Ravenstahl but are also significantly more likely than non-Blacks to be undecided.
Education-level is a big dividing point in the race. People with college degrees are almost twice as likely to vote for Peduto. Those with advanced degrees are 71% more likely to vote for Peduto. Conversely, people with a High School or GED-level education are 2.3X more likely to support Ravenstahl. Those with some college but no degree are 72% more likely to support the current Mayor.
From an occupational standpoint, Peduto leads by 40% among people in Professional/Managerial jobs and by 4.5X among people in Operations and Sales. People in the service industry are 2 1/2 times more likely to support Ravenstahl. Also, Retirees are 20% more likely and Home Makers a whopping 4X more likely to support Ravenstahl. The ever-important group of “Craftsmen and Laborers” is split dead even, as are people in computer or technical fields.
Peduto has 15% greater support among people who expect a worsening job market in the next 6 months and 2X higher support among people who view the current local economy as “Poor.” Those who view the economy as strong support Ravenstahl by more then 2 to 1, while those view it as average are 20% more likely to support the current Mayor.
When asked about their favorite pets, the contrast was striking. Cat people are 20% more likely to support Ravenstahl. Dog people are 20% more likely to support Peduto.
Civic Science polled the 2011 Allegheny County Executive race and found Democrat Rich Fitzgerald leading Republican Raja 48 percent to 30 percent (or 62 percent to 38 percent of decided voters). Voters went for Fitzgerald 62 percent to 38 percent on election day four days later.
If Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce Castor decides to challenge Gov. Tom Corbett in next year’s Republican primary, he will have some catching up to do.
The latest survey from Public Policy Polling, obtained by PoliticsPA, shows the Governor ahead by a 44 point margin, 51 percent to 11 percent.
This poll reflects the fact that Castor’s name ID falls far short of Corbett’s. But perhaps more importantly, the Governor is having a hard time consolidating his party’s support. Less than half of Republicans – 45 percent – said they’d like Corbett to be the GOP nominee in 2014. 37 percent said they want someone else.
Only 54 percent of Republicans said they approve the job he’s doing as Governor. 31 percent disapprove.
The crosstabs tell an interesting story. Corbett does well among self-identified “very conservative” voters, whom he wins 50 percent to 28 against a generic GOP opponent (“someone else”). He does the worst against “somewhat liberal” Republicans (who he loses 70 percent to 23).
That leaves a tough choice ahead for Castor: should he run to Corbett’s left or right? Moderate and liberal Republicans more strongly dislike Corbett, but represent a smaller part of the party base. Conservatives represent more voters and give Corbett higher scores – although their support is soft.
Corbet’’s gender gap – well documented in polls of the general electorate – hurts him in the GOP, too. 47 percent of GOP women say they’re undecided between the two (42 percent for Corbett, 11 for Castor), compared to just 29 percent of men (59 percent for Corbett, 12 for Castor).
Castor, who lost to Corbett in the 2004 primary for Pa. Attorney General, said in December that he was considering a 2014 challenge.
In important issue in 2014 will be the Penn State Scandal. Only 42 percent of Republicans approve of the way that Corbett has handled the issue as AG or Governor, compared to 33 percent who disapprove (though they strongly support his lawsuit against the NCAA, 67 percent to 19).
Finally, a majority of Pa. Republicans support some form of legal recognition of same sex relationships. 14 percent support full marriage equality; 39 percent said gay couples should be allowed civil unions but not marriages. 45 percent said there should be no legal status at all.
The Republicans polled were a subset of the firm’s Jan. 4 to 6 poll of 675 registered Pa. voters. 38 percent of those, or around 257 respondents, were Republicans. That means the margin of error for the Corbett-Castor head to head is about 6 percent.
Reid was scooped up immediately by the Kansas City Chiefs. Photoshop: lobshots.com
After the most recent debacle of a season, it would be an understatement to say that Philadelphians had absolutely had it with Andy Reid. That’s what Harper Polling have indicated. Their latest survey shows that a decisive majority of Philadelphians and suburbanites – a margin of 60 percent to 9 percent – say they are satisfied with Jeffrey Lurie’s decision to can coach Reid after 14 seasons.
That’s according to 181 of the 798 respondents in the statewide poll. The smaller sample size means that the margin of error is in the neighborhood of 7 percent – a number that is 3 higher than the Birds’ total wins in 2012.
National pundits across the country may disagree but SEPA could barely be more pleased.
Can you blame them? Never having won a Super Bowl and only making an appearance at the game twice, the people of Philadelphia and its surrounding areas were only more than frustrated as they continued to watch their dreams of an Eagles parade on Broad Street fall slowly with each and every interception and turnover these past few seasons.
Andy Reid had been a welcomed coach when he first arrived in Philadelphia, and many believed he was the great thing our city needed. But in normal Philadelphia fashion, it was only a matter of time before we pulled the whole, “all good things must come to an end” card.
Poor performance on the field and a lack of heart and showing on the field by Andy’s players weren’t the only thing that drew criticism from the SEPA fans of the Eagles, and led them to cry out battle calls to “Fire Andy.” Reid’s ridiculous inability to manage the clock left fans yelling, screaming, and questioning why Andy seemed to move at a different pace than the rest of the world. Most recently, poor talent evaluation and questionable draft picks doomed Big Red.
Philadelphia sports fans are arguably some of the toughest in the country. They know no boundaries, and take no pity. They hold nothing back when it comes to their city’s sports teams. Let’s be honest here, they are the only city that’s fans had notoriously and relentlessly thrown snowballs at Santa Claus during an Eagles Game. Harper Polling’s survey on Andy Reid’s firing comes as little surprise to anyone in Philadelphia or SEPA who, many would venture to say, would have been just as satisfied if this firing had come a few years sooner.
The rest of the state, or at least opinionated citizens, seemed to agree with Philadelphia and the surrounding area leaning ‘satisfied’ over ‘disastisfied.’
Reid got the most love in Scranton/northeast, where just 26 percent said they were satisfied with the firing and 24 percent said dissatisfied.
The only section of PA where respondents overwhelmingly had no opinion was Pittsburgh/Southwest, but with six Super Bowls and their own problems it’s easy to see why they wouldn’t care.
Needless to say, hopefully after Andy’s firing, we have one less problem. Good luck, Kansas City.
Cram is a Philadelphia resident and long-suffering Eagles fan.
Not one but two polls – Public Policy PollingandHarper Polling – show that Gov. Tom Corbett’s lawsuit against the NCAA is popular in Pa. But will the move boost his re-election campaign in 2014?
(Corbett has repeatedly said the move was about fairness for Penn State, not politics).
We pundits have had our say. Now it’s your turn.
Do you support Governor Corbett's plan to remove the cap on taxes paid by gasoline wholesalers?
Yes, this will help restore much needed funding to Pennsylvania transportation. (75%)
No, I do not support a tax increase. (25%)
Total Voters: 583
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Poll
Do you support Governor Corbett's plan to remove the cap on taxes paid by gasoline wholesalers?
Yes, this will help restore much needed funding to Pennsylvania transportation. (75%)
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