This election season, YouGov, in association with the New York Times and CBS News have been conducting their own surveys of the various Gubernatorial and Senate races this November.
The latest YouGov poll shows Tom Wolf with a 47% to 38% lead, or 50% to 41% when leaners are included.
These results, like the previous Quinnipiac Poll, show a narrowing of Wolf’s lead. Last month, YouGov showed him with an eleven point advantage over the Governor.
YouGov found an especially large gender gap. The Democratic nominee leads among women by a 51 to 29 margin while Gov. Corbett is ahead among men 47 to 42.
Meanwhile, Independent voters favor Corbett (42-38) while moderate voters favor Wolf (58-21).
Among age groups, Wolf is ahead among all subsets except voters 65 and older. This could represent a silver lining for Tom Corbett as older voters are the most reliable voters.
Finally Wolf holds a one-point advantage, 43% to 42%, among white voters. The Democrat has a 74% to 8% margin among black voters.
YouGov uses an unique methodology but were judged to be the second-most accurate polling firm in the country after 2012.
They surveyed 3,283 respondents from September 20th to October 1st. The margin of error is plus or minus 2%.
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38 Responses
Addendum: I break-up the URL’s because their presence otherwise has caused delayed uploading on this website.
First, it’s great to note that you’re alive, for you have been too evasive, for far too long.
Second, what is the basis for your claim that Breitbart is a tainted news-source [with particular reference to this article]?
Third, note that the DoJ must divulge “Vaughn”-#’s of all F&F documents this week [for BHO failed to kick this can down the post-Midterms road].
Htt
p://w
ww.judicialwatch.o
rg/press-room/press-releases/federal-court-denies-doj-motion-delay-orders-release-fast-furious-documents-list-judicial-watch-october-22/
Third, your effort to tie BHO’s F&F to Bush-’43 fails, noting the nexus-point around which the current problem arose occurred in 2/2009.
“But starting in fall 2009, instead of stopping the transactions or questioning the customers, ATF often encouraged select gun dealers to go ahead and complete suspicious sales.”
Htt
p://ww
w.cbsnews.co
m/news/a-primer-on-the-fast-and-furious-scandal/
[presumably, you don’t reject CBS as a news-source]
Regarding the cover-up, try to wiggle-your-way out of this quote:
“In May Holder testified before Congress — under oath — that he had learned about the gun-running scheme only “in the last few weeks.” But last week, he changed his story after it became well known via the Justice Department’s own documents that his claim was completely false.”
Ht
tp://ww
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m/usnews/crime/item/7560-holder-admits-lies-in-fast-and-furious-refuses-to-resign
No wonder the vote in favor of the unprecedented “Contempt of Congress” motion was bipartisan.
THEREFORE, your defense of AG-Holder [again] falls flat, and you have failed even to address the fact that “Eric Holder Signed Off On Search Warrant For James Rosen Emails: NBC News.” This directly contradicted your effort to distance him from what had transpired [“You’ve yet to demonstrate that Holder signed off and KNEW that there were false representations. Signing off doesn’t prove/imply he knew of false statements.”].
Finally, you have failed to ID any evidence that either “Bob” or myself demonstrated a racist motivation for attacking AG-Holder.
1) Breitbart is not a news source
2) “congressional Republicans” claiming a cover-up is not the same as there being a cover-up nor any evidence of a cover-up.
I would expect that every gun used in Fast & Furious winds up in a crime. Adding one more to the list doesn’t change that this Bush-era policy by the ATF was terrible and the people in the ATF associated with the original Project Gunrunner should be held responsible for their lies to the FBI and Justice Department that perpetuated this bad policy.
@ DD:
Compounding your challenge [DEFENDING BHO/HOLDER], note today’s news [as the noose tighens]…
“Eric Holder’s Top Deputy Resigns Amid Revelation Fast and Furious Guns Used in Phoenix Crime, a development top congressional Republicans say Obama’s administration sought to cover up.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/16/Eric-Holder-s-Top-Deputy-Resigns-Amid-Revelation-Administration-Covered-Up-Use-Of-Fast-and-Furious-Guns-In-Phoenix-Crime
@ DD:
Now that you have blogged elsewhere and have consciously eschewed replying to the below-documentation, you ceded justification and credibility to blog on PoliticsPA; you are exposed as unable to justify your posture after having been challenged effectively.
@ DD:
Well, you combine willful-ignorance and moral-equivalency to cover-up your excess, typical Dem….
You wrote “Robert…ALL the Obama/Holder linked criticism is racially based.” You engage in historical revisionism when you ascribe your comment to another “Bob” and you break your absolutism when you absolve me [properly].
You cannot claim that anyone in Bush-’43’s administration knowingly signed-off on a false-document, particularly one on such a high-profile situation [for which he has yet to apologize], so don’t trot-out vagaries to cover-up your guy’s version of BHO’s imperialism.
Also, you failed to cognate the fact that Holder knowingly lied under oath to Congress [along with Clapper, etc.], and no retroactive claim that the quote was the “least incorrect” lie passes the scratch/sniff test.
Why can’t you admit obvious error???
Robert-
I’m accusing “Bob” of the Oct 12th, 8:48pm posting of Racism. I’m just accusing you of stupidity for not recognizing that that “Bob” was being racist.
As for your links, this is the first link you’ve posted that actually contained the claim that Holder signed off. All the other links you posted in support didn’t contain the claim.
However, like I said, this is all bad government policy that’s been going on since the Bush administration and Patriot act. The government has been overreaching on claims of national security and classified information long before Obama and Holder.
The sign-off is a mere formality as it’s clear Holder routinely signed off what his staff put in front of him based on their representations.
But, again, this is bad policy, NOT corruption. If you want to end this policy, you should be calling for a complete shutdown of the CIA and NSA, which have been routinely capturing this kind of data and worst.
@ DD
This is truly getting tiresome; how can you accuse me of racism when all i’ve done is provide hyperlinks…such as those to follow?
ht
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ww.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/7560-holder-admits-lies-in-fast-and-furious-refuses-to-resign
“Eric Holder Signed Off On Search Warrant For James Rosen Emails: NBC News”
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ww.huffingtonpost.co
m/2013/05/23/eric-holder-fox-news-james-rosen-warrant_n_3328663.html
PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR ERRORS.
Robert-
ALL the Obama/Holder linked criticism is racially based.
The link you gave makes no reference to false testimony. If you are referring to the statement by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich, that ATF didn’t engage in “gunwalking”, then you are stretching things. It relayed information provided by ATF, not DOJ, and it was retracted when discovered that ATF had engaged in the practice (both under Bush and Obama). So, the only “cover-up” here is by ATF.
As for Holder signing off, your foxnew link contains no such assertion that he signed off on it. So, what’s the point of the link?
The Republican Impact fee has dropped by 75% per well
in four years, $40,000 to $30,000 to $25,000 down to $10,000,
after 15 years it goes to ZERO. Marcellus shale production has
increase by over 700% so far this year. Did any one in Pennsylvania
get a 75% reduction in their property tax over the last four years ?
Why do the people from Texas get all the money and jobs ?
@ DD
Notwithstanding your jabs @ Quayle, perhaps you’ll accept corroboration from the mainstream media, which notes [1]–the program started in 2009 [regardless of Bush’43] and that the DoJ admitted having provided false-testimony.
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snews.com/news/a-primer-on-the-fast-and-furious-scandal/
ALSO
Eric Holder signed off on DOJ affidavit for Fox reporter.
htt
p://ww
w.washingtontimes.c
om/news/2013/may/24/eric-holder-signed-doj-affidavit-fox-reporter-repo/?page=all
*
You also introduced racism into the discourse inappopriately, behavior that you have yet to acknowledge; neither overtly nor covertly was any provocation extant in any prior e-mail, for you “read” the commonality of skin-color [of BHO/Holder] into the discussion based solely upon prejudices you harbor.
*
I truly wish you wouldn’t keep “playing dumb” for the reading-audience; ‘fess-up!
President Obama took tens of millions from Wall Street. Financial Crime ran rampant on Wall Street and destroyed the savings of tens of millions of ordinary Americans and well as tens of millions yet unborn. The damages are in the tens of trillions of dollars. Nobody running those Wall Street institutions was indicted, let alone convicted, under the Obama Justice Department after six years in power with all the resources of an enhanced security state at their fingertips. Too big to jail is an explicit statement of corruption.
Robert- Your “Quayle” reference is over two years old and is an opinion by one-term, ultra-conservative Rep Ben Quayle the son of idiot Dan Quayle.
The supposed “lie” under oath was Holder’s opinion that the affidavit did not allow a specific policy. Hardly a smoking gun.
As for the operations, the break in time was NOT a break in policy. BOTH operations failed in similar ways. “In early 2011, the project became controversial when it was revealed that Operation Wide Receiver (2006–2007) and Operation Fast and Furious (2009–2010) had allowed guns to “walk” into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.”
The ATF bungled both operations. So, attempting to put this on Obama/Holder is ridiculous unless you are going to put (at least) equal blame on Bush administration for creating the project in the first place.
You’ve yet to demonstrate that Holder signed off and KNEW that there were false representations. Signing off doesn’t prove/imply he knew of false statements.
You are either completely foolish and ignorant, or you are lying, if you claim the attacks on Obama/Holder have not been racially motivated.
@ DD
F & F included a subsequent XoJ admission that AG-Holder had lied under oath
htt
p://dailycaller.c
om/2012/09/19/quayle-on-fast-and-furious-report-holder-lied-to-my-face-during-house-testimony/
Furthermore, as you dating proves, there was a break between Bush-’43’s version [which tracked the guns] and BHO’s [which didn’t]; thus, this was NOT a continuation of prior policy.
AG-Holder admittedly signed-off on acquiring the Rosen Affidavit, which contained knowingly-false accusations.
ht
tp://www.foxnews.c
om/politics/2013/05/20/justice-department-obtained-records-fox-news-journalist/
Thus, in both instances, AG-Holder abused the power of his office.
Finally, you completely confabulated any racism component, a typical Dem-ploy.
Robert-
1) Fast and Furious was not corruption. It was a Bush policy: Project Gunrunner
There was Operation Wide Receiver (2006–2007) and Operation Fast and Furious (2009–2010)
While these were badly run and implemented policies, they don’t rise to the level of “corruption”. If, on the other hand, Holder had been paid off by Mexican gunrunners to look the other way, then it would be corruption.
2) The James Rosen Affidavit was signed by FBI agent Reginald B. Reyes and approved by a judge, Alan Kay. This part of the general and routine pattern of abuse of the Patriot Act and espionage laws that has been going on since the Bush administration. The NSA has been sucking up all this stuff anyway. In this case, at least a judge was in the loop and could have denied the warrant.
No one was bribed. No money changed hands. Again, not corruption.
There’s a huge difference between bad policy/incompetence and corruption.
3) I felt Bob DID bring race into it by implication, since he didn’t actually provide any examples.
@ DD
Why did you feel compelled to introduce racism into an otherwise decent discussion
@ DD
Fast @ Furious
James Rosen Affidavit
[for starters]
It’s shame that Geo. Bush wasn’t around longer so that his administration could have prosecuted Wall Street cronies. He would have “larned” them. Seems I did read about billions in fines leveled on the Wall Street types, but they need to go to jail, too, right? Nobody is going to jail before or now.
Well, after taking hundreds of millions from Wall Street, after the greatest financial crime spree in history, Eric Holder’s Justice Department prosecuted fewer white collar cases since Kennedy. Too big to fail and too big to fail is an explicit articulation of corruption.
Bob-
“as corrupt as Obama and Eric Holder”?
1) Is your statement imply that because they are both black, that they are somehow corrupt?
2) Please name ONE example of corruption (as defined: dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery)
“coming after your guns” ?? They keep making that charge against Obama and it’s been complete BS. Obama hasn’t done jack-sh*t to go after guns (and we are very disappointed that he hasn’t made this a priority).
Just imagine Wolf and Kathleen Kane running the show. This would be as corrupt as Obama and Eric Holder. And to all of you constipated “Democrats are for the working people” types, they’ll be coming after your guns if Tom “Cheap Particle Board” Wolf is elected.
Robert-
The oil/gas industry is only “challenging” by accusing the PA-BPC of saying “PA drillers don’t pay enough taxes”. They ARE NOT disputing the amount of revenue that would be generated by a 5% extraction tax. They simply don’t want to pay it and cry (boo-hoo). But, that doesn’t change the math that the revenue would be enough to cover Education (which should be one of the highest budget priorities).
So, once again you dodge and deny, after calling for numbers and getting them, because the numbers undercut your arguments.
The money is there, because the gas is there, and there is no other place for them to go to get it if they want it. They’ll pay the 5% extraction tax and still be profitable, while we’ll be able to adequately fund the schools.
M. R. Birkos-
Great analysis. It won’t silence Robert though, because the facts don’t match up with his world view against taxing big companies for extracting natural resources to pay for budget priorities like Education.
The retail value of the gas in the Marcellus Shale is pegged at $352.5 billion, using the reserves estimate of the United States Geological Survey – 141 trillion cubic feet of gas – with an average price of $2.50 per thousand cubic feet of gas.
5% = $17 billion, over the projected 15-20 year life of the field.
There are roughly 6,000 Marcellus wells. Only about ½ are producing gas today. The remainder is shut in, awaiting pipeline connections. Estimates of $500 million/year in lost state revenue now, could easily balloon to over a billion dollars per year once the pipelines are attached.
Over 60% of the gas will be sold out of state – passing on the PA severance tax to the global market.
All the 35 of the other gas-producing states assess a severance tax.
Millionaire Governor Corbett sold the future of Pennsylvania to the gas companies for $3 million, donated to his 2010 & 2014 gube campaigns. Today, he says he can “feel” victory. The only thing he “feels” is the hand of Big Gas, using him as a sock puppet.
$17 billion dollars will solve a lot of problems.
This data will silence a lot of critics.
@ DD
First of all, you should probably have noted that the concern you raised is obviously a typo [“m” vs. “b”]
Second, you derived your quote from a source that was challenged.
htt
p://pennbpc.or
g/just-facts-marcellus-shale-jobs-and-taxes-paid
htt
p://marcellusdrilling.c
om/2014/06/pa-budget-policy-center-issues-repeated-call-
for-high-drill-tax/
Robert-
You wrote: “reduction in state education spending from $9.6 billion to $9.2 billion. This reduction was backfilled” with $6.55 million in federal stimulus funds to bring about an apparent increase in spending on education.”
How do you “backfill” a $700 million dollar difference with only $6.55 million?
Specific #s for you:
According to the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center: “A 5% severance tax would raise $600 million in 2014-15 and $1.4 billion annually by 2018-19. It is a recurring source of revenue that could reduce reliance on one-time changes, fund transfers, payment delays, and other strategies that are unsustainable over the long term.”
This would be enough to restore Education funding levels. This is money that Corbett has left on the table for 4 years, rather than use it to help with budget shortfalls in Education and other areas. It not like the drillers can go somewhere else, because the oil/gas they want is here.
Polls have Wolf way far ahead. No one likes Corbett except right wing extremists with authoritarian control issues.
He has ruined this state. We need a change. Most people, maybe not the ones posting here, realize this. I do not take stock in what commenters say as representative.
john wolfe is a nice man but he aint gonna win cuz goevnor corbitt gonna win cuz the way it works in penna is guvs get to be guv for 8 yrs at a time than the other party get to be gov for 8yrs, that the way it work in pena.,
Explain to me how a Gov. Wolf might get these tax increases through a House and Senate controlled by pretty much the same Republicans who did not give Gov. Corbett what he wanted.
If and when the electorate focuses on the race and sees how vague Wolf has been about how he will lead and manage the Commonwealth,
but very clear that he will raise taxes on incomes and gas/oil extraction…
…Then Tom Corbett wins re-election.
@ DD [et al.]:
If you fear challenging Nathan Benefield’s work via the Commonwealth Foundation, deal with this [which is reprinted because the original is protected by a Pay-Wall]:
htt
p://ww
w.theintell.com/opinion/op-ed/pennsylvania-education-funding-a-look-at-the-facts/article_2584125e-0211-5d8d-a4c8-a8c01e51b145.html
Pennsylvania education funding: a look at the facts
Posted: Thursday, October 9, 2014 12:15 am
Since 2011, when Gov. Tom Corbett took office and Republicans regained the majority in the state House, I have heard ad nauseam about how “Corbett cut education by a billion dollars” or “Corbett is underfunding education.” Let’s just take a look at the facts.
First, governors do not enact budgets by themselves. In February of each year, the governor proposes a budget to start the process. Following that, both the House and Senate appropriations committees have public hearings with each department and agency of state government to review in detail each proposed appropriation. In addition, both the House and Senate committee chairmen take feedback from their respective committee members and from all members of their respective chambers.
When that review process is complete, both the House and Senate develop their own revised budgets, and the negotiation process begins among the House and Senate leaders and the governor’s office. To say that this can be an intense process would be a vast understatement. Each chamber and member of the General Assembly and the governor have differing views and priorities on both revenues and expenditures, and getting 102 votes in the House, 26 in the Senate and the governor on board is an exhausting undertaking.
My point in outlining the budget process is simply to point out that the enacted budget is not the “governor’s” budget. It is the product of a process, not the dictate of one person, though I will agree that the governor’s one veto vote carries a lot more weight than my one vote on the Appropriations Committee or on the floor of the House.
Next, let’s look at the facts of state education funding in the budgets enacted under the last two governors. In particular, let’s look at Gov. Ed Rendell’s last three education budgets and the four under Corbett. In the 2009-10 budget, Rendell asked for, and the Democratic House approved, a reduction in state education spending from $9.6 billion to $9.2 billion. This reduction was “backfilled” with $6.55 million in federal stimulus funds to bring about an apparent increase in spending on education.
Again in the 2010-11 budget, Rendell asked for and the Democratic House approved a reduction in state education spending from the previous year’s $9.2 billion to $8.9 billion. Again this reduction was backfilled with $1 billion in federal stimulus funds to bring about another apparent increase in spending on education.
The problems with using short-term stimulus funds are many.
First, it sets school districts up for failure. Despite warnings that these stimulus dollars would go away after two years and that state funding would go back to prestimulus levels, many school districts folded these stimulus funds into their operating budgets, hired new teachers and staff, took on new debt and generally increased spending to levels that would not be sustainable without significant school property tax increases.
Second, from a state budget perspective, relying on stimulus funds to be part of the general education funding line also set the state budget up for failure by artificially inflating the revenue for the overall state budget. In the 2009-10 and 2010-11 budgets, the $6.55 million and $1 billion in federal stimulus funds that were used in the education line item were treated as revenue and shifted into increased spending in other line items of the budget.
Fast forward to 2011-12: Corbett takes office, the majority in the House shifts to the Republicans, and the $1 billion in federal stimulus money for education go away. Because of this loss of $1 billion and other “smoke and mirrors” budgeting by the previous governor and House, the new governor and House are faced with a $4 billion deficit going into their first budget. This results in a lot of belt-tightening in departments and agencies across the board, particularly in the Department of Public Welfare.
To avoid the “budget crunch” both school districts and the state faced in 2011-12 and in subsequent budget years, those stimulus funds in 2009-11 should not have been used as “revenue” for spending in the general fund but rather used as block grants for specific capital investments at school districts above and beyond our normal state education funding. In that way, we would not have ended up with artificially high levels of spending that cannot be sustained with our existing revenue stream.
Now, let’s take a look at education spending during Corbett’s years in office. The first “Corbett budget” in 2011-12 included $9.4 billion of state funds for education, an increase of $500 million over the previous year’s state spending in the last “Rendell budget.” In the next “Corbett budget” of 2012-13, state spending on education was again increased $300 million to $9.7 billion, the highest amount of state funding in history. Again in the 2013-14 budget, state spending on education was increased to $9.98 billion, another record. Finally, in this year’s budget for 2014-15, “we” increased state spending on education to an all-time high of $10.5 billion.
So, the question remains: Where does the claim of Tom Corbett’s $1 billion cut in education come from? The only answer is that the facts do not bear out the claim, and that the only $1 billion cut in education was the loss of federal stimulus funding in 2011.
So, this is an internet based poll of REGISTERED VOTERS that you volunteer to take that starts off with issues questions that lead you to other answers. Right.
@ DD
Assuming the entire burden isn’t envisioned as being covered by the income tax, whence will the financing arise [and, please, provided #’s, rather than simply typing “fracking”]???
Robert The ENTIRE PREMISE of the “study” is wrong. There is no plan or suggestion to provide the funding through a flat income tax increase. So, to put everything on that is like taking the amount of money needed and claiming Wolf wants a $2/gal gasoline tax to cover it instead. Putting the burden of the fee on a type of tax that Wolf hasn’t decided to use is beyond misleading, especially when he has identified the tax he does want to use.
Robert- Your “study” has already been debunked. Please stop reposting it to make false claims.
Yes Corbett moved up two percentage points from their August internet poll.
@ observer:
I hardly think the sponsoring entities [New York Times and CBS News] are GOP-oriented; also, the aforementioned hyperlinks were divvied-up so that they would survive the process [experienced in the past on this website] of blocking uploads that have excessive documentation embedded.
This reflects the fact that, as November approaches, the race has tightened; missing from the equation in PA is linking all Dems to Obama, a process that should help Corbett substantially.
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rl?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCYQFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gop.com%2Fobama-just-nationalized-the-election%2F&ei=uio4VNapOuvksAS-5YGACg&usg=AFQjCNHpBlVcqSk7rki_22Gt9XS4R_3RWw&sig2=hZjMeSGW_1oP0fxyTjLzEw&bvm=bv.77161500,d.eXY
On another site, here on Politics PA, pro-Wolf posters have been challenged to do what Wolf has avoided doing; deal with NUMBERS.
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Specifically, I cited a study that claimed that Wolf’s ‘Fresh Start’ plan requires huge tax increases, doubling the state income tax.
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Perhaps if this narrowing trend continues, the press will press Wolf to match Corbett’s specificity.
Tommie better not get too excited. YouGov’s “methodology” relies entirely on volunteer panelists – full disclosure: I am one – who decide which polls they want to respond to. COMPLETELY unscientific, and irreproduceable. Plus, they lead off candidate polls with issues questions – which always slants the remaining answers. For the Tommie poll, they led off with Public Pensions. Really, YouGov? Were you PAID to make Tommie look competitive? Desperate TV stations need the ad money? Junk polling, Republicans – save your ad money for races you can win.