All eyes will be on Pennsylvania this November, where Democrats have the rarest of chances for a pickup in the US Senate and the governor’s race features a “Big Lie” Republican who was subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee. All this in a state that President Biden barely won by 1.3%.
- President Biden’s lead has vanished since we last polled the state in February. Five months ago, Biden led Trump 45%-40%. Today, the race is a statistical tie (42%/41%). Biden saw his lead among college-educated voters drop from 18% in February to 12% this month, and among women from 15% to 9%.
- John Fetterman leads Dr. Oz by 9.3% (48.9%-39.6%) in the race for US Senate, and Josh Shapiro leads Doug Mastriano by 11.3% (50.7%-39.4%) in the race for governor. Both Democrats win voters who say they are undecided or voting third party in the presidential race by a 2:1 margin, and both candidates improve on Biden’s vote share among voters under 45 by double digits.
- Democrats’ big bet on Doug Mastriano looks to be paying off (at least for now). During the state’s primaries, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party spent money on ads to boost the far-right Mastriano over more moderate candidates—a bold move. With this in mind, we asked Shapiro voters and undecideds whether a more moderate Republican would have earned their votes.
Given the option between Shapiro and a moderate Republican, one in five Shapiro voters say they would have either voted for the Republican or are unsure how they would have voted. And 29% of undecideds say they would have cast a ballot for a more moderate GOP candidate over Shapiro. While an unnamed, hypothetical candidate is not the same as a flesh-and-blood politician, it’s clear that the race for governor would be closer at this time if the Republicans had nominated a candidate who appealed to centrists—and given the bad midterm environment, very likely would have tilted in the GOP’s favor.
About Blueprint
Blueprint Polling is a sister company to Chism Strategies that conducts survey research in federal, state, and local elections. This survey of 712 voters July 19-21, 2022, included landline and mobile phone responses and has a margin of error of +/- 3.67%. Blueprint conducted this research with no input or funding from any candidate, committee, or interest group. For more information call Brad Chism at 601.918.4563.
