Democratic surge in PA! PA-GOV: (R) Corbett 48, (D) Onorato 46 (+11)

The Democratic resurgence in Pennsylvania isn't limited to Joe Sestak. PPP's new poll of the Governor's race finds Dan Onorato pulling to within 2 points of Tom Corbett, 48-46.

The reasons for Onorato's improved standing are the same as Sestak's:

1) The likely electorate for this fall is trending in a more Democratic direction. When PPP found Corbett ahead by 13 points in mid-August those planning to vote this fall in Pennsylvania reported having voted for John McCain by a 1 point margin in 2008. Now the likely electorate supported Barack Obama by 4 points, still a drop from his actual 10 point win but at least an indication that the party's voters are picking up their level of enagement.

2) Democratic voters are getting more unified around Onorato. He's seen his support from within his party jump 13 points over the last couple months from 62% to 75%. Corbett's also seen a gain in his party support across that period of time but it hasn't been quite as large, from 74% to 82%.

3) Independents are now splitting pretty evenly. In August Corbett had a commanding 52-20 lead with them. Now it's just 48-46.

Despite the Onorato surge this poll can also be seen as encouraging for Corbett. He hasn't lost any support from his 48% standing in August and the undecideds in this race are exceedingly low at just 6%. So Corbett doesn't have to pick up much more support to get over 50%.

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http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/10/onorato-within-2.html

it's Corbett 48 - Onorato 46

Thanks.

Onorato seems to be the ideal candidate to win this race. He is a moderate, increased spending a mere 2% each year, and can communicate well.

It's disgusting, the smear ads against Onorato and Sestak are constant, one after the other, on the tube and on the radio. Toomey blaming Sestak for the bailouts really tees me off. I loathe that guy.

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Key to making it happen in PA ... The unions will go to work, and we are getting people from out of state helping out ... The OFA network is fairly good in PA. But, any D going statewide has to pile up the numbers in Philly ...

I am dead center in the "T." Pretty strong R, but we have the one little blue blip in the middle of it. Our end is not 08 amped up, but it is amped ...

I have felt all along Sestak had a better shot than Onorato. He is a darn good candidate with strong merits, and Toomey has his soft underbelly as a candidate, he has run a stealth campaign, but he has a lower plateau if he is exposed enough ...

Corbett is AG and has been campaigning for years for this job - holding a statewide job, and also has strategically sought prosecution on a lot of the clowns in Harrisburg - sure to score points with the population, ringing up a lot of D peltskins to secure the R nomination, then going after some Rs after he was the presumptive R nominee to get the look of being an equal opportunity prosecuter ...

Onorato has done a REAL good job in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) BUT doing that good job made his share of enemies ...

In addition the factors I noted, Pa has this goofy pattern where an R gets 8 years, a D gets 8 years, an R gets 8 years ... ect in the governors office ...

Rendell is like Bill Clinton without the hanky panky, he is good for Rendell, but not so good for other dems ... He is leaving office with a BIG deficit and debt, the stank of a putrid general assembly and Senate, and the reputation as working more for Philly than the rest of the state ...

Ds will vote straight ticket pretty strongly, because both Sestak and Onorato are darn good candidates ... BUT, the middle is going to more willing to split and if they split, it will more likely to give the nod to the ex admiral in the senate and the R in the governors mansion ...

I would say if it were 06 or 08, Onorato might be able to squeek it out, but those were really strong elections in the state for Ds ... While I think Sestak has a good chance to swim upstream this year, I don't think Onorato is going to get there ...

Pat Quinn is looking stronger in Illinois though.

He's popular there. Attack ads from outsiders don't go over very well in some states.
Carol Shea Porters numbers (NH-01) have gone up since the Koch brothers/Rove ads
have aired.

featuring the unemployed reacting to Corbetts comments that there are jobs available but the unemployed are lazy and don't want to find work until their unemployment runs out.

Definitely things are swinging back to the Dems way.. hope it keeps going.

Seriously, why run two separate polls for a race that will have the exact same people voting at the ballot box? They're both statewide elections in PA.

Glad to hear that Onorato is catching up though, I'd hate to have Corbett as our governor for the next 4 to 8 years. I mean the guy is refusing to put ANY tax on the HUGE amounts of Natural Gas in PA just as the Natural Gas market is picking up steam, it makes PA look like Texas in terms of it's amounts of Natural Gas, and other states that have put modest taxes on Natural gas found zero decline in their Natural Gas markets.

Hopefully with Ororato from western PA, and Sestak from Eastern PA the two can turn out the democratic base in massive numbers in their own parts of the state to help each other out.

Still, I'd put more stock in Sestak's odds, PA has a long history the last 5 decades of electing and reelecting the same party into the governor's mansion for 8 years, then switching to the other party for the next 8 years, no matter how good or bad of a job they do. And democrats have held the governor's mansion for the last 8 years here in PA, which means history shows a republican will probably win.