The latest Franklin & Marshall College poll shows the Democratic candidates are still in a favorable position with less than two weeks remaining before Election Day.
The poll, which was conducted prior to Tuesday’s U.S. Senate debate, shows Josh Shapiro with a 23-point advantage (56-33%) over GOP challenger Doug Mastriano, while John Fetterman enjoys a five-point edge (48-43%) over Republican nominee Mehmet Oz.
One of the survey’s most notable findings is how dissatisfied GOP respondents are with their party’s nominees for Senate and governor. The poll indicated that both Oz and Mastriano are running well behind a generic Republican candidate, particularly among traditional Republicans, while support among Democrats for Fetterman and Shapiro is much more cohesive.
Of those surveyed, 2 in 3 registered voters are “very interested” in the upcoming election while 9 in 10 said they are “certain” to cast their ballot. One in four (28%) said they were planning to vote by mail. Not surprisingly, more Democrats (45%) than Republicans (11%) planned to vote by that method.
There is little good news for the GOP candidate for the governor’s mansion in the poll, which sees the Democratic Attorney General increasing his advantage from September’s F&M poll by 13 points. Shapiro has 91 percent support amongst Dem voters, while the GOP state senator from Franklin County is garnering just 69 percent support among Republicans.
Shapiro’s favorability ratings have improved since the last F&M survey and currently sits at plus-21 (53-32). Mastriano, on the other hand, has seen his ratings drop to minus-27 (30-57). The AG’s numbers are also better on questions of understanding the concerns of Pennsylvanians (55-31%), social issues (56-29%) and improving voters’ economic conditions (43-34%).
Fetterman continues to hold a slight edge over Oz, although Tuesday’s debate followed after the conclusion of the survey.
Since the last F&M poll, the race has not changed much (45-42%). Oz has shown improvement in bringing Republicans back under the tent at 82 percent, while Fetterman continues to show strength among the base (84%). The pair is essentially deadlocked when looking at the independent vote.
Both candidates are underwater in favorability ratings. Fetterman is now a minus-8 with a 43% favorable and 51% unfavorable marks. Oz’s unfavorables double the lieutenant governor’s at minus-19 (38-57%).
The survey findings presented in this release are based on the results of interviews conducted October 14-23. The interviews were conducted at the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall. The data included in this release represent the responses of 620 registered Pennsylvania voters, including 280 Democrats, 254 Republicans, and 86 independents.
The sample error for this survey is +/- 5.3 percentage points when the design effects from weighting are considered.
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3 Responses
Let us hope that with his election all but guaranteed before Memorial Day Shapiro had given some thought to what he wants to do as Governor and how he will staff his administration, both things with neither Corbett nor Wolf could be bothered despite the near-certainty of victory at the beginning of the general election campaign.
Democrats best hope was fulfilled when the Republicans voted in Oz and Mastriano.
Shapiro has a strong lead that is not going to evaporate in the last couple weeks no matter what he does. If he wants to avoid being a lame duck governor, he should spend the next two weeks busting his ass getting Dems elected in the swing seats on the bubble. He needs a democratic State legislature or he’s going to spend the next few years vetoing stupid abortion bills. If Josh really wants to fulfill his campaign promises, he needs a democratic legislature to lead otherwise he’s not going to get anything accomplished. Josh was in the legislature, and he seen how ineffective Wolf has been getting anything done with the Republicans in charge. If Josh is genuinely serious about bettering the lives of Pennsylvanians he needs to do everything in his power to elect other democrats. That means doing commercials with every Democrat in a close State legislature seat.
He needs to tell the voters out right that the GOP legislative candidates, if elected, would vote for the same stuff that Mastriano believes.
Beating a QAnon loser like Mastriano isn’t going to put Josh on the national stage. However, having coattails that flip the State House would make him a national hero and a model for other Dems.