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Media hyperventilates over bad Specter poll numbers
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Boy, people are jumping on the bash-Arlen-Specter bandwagon! They’ve taken a look at a new poll and they’re seeing catastrophe:
CQ Politics.com: Poll: Specter’s Numbers Tumble _ http://tinyurl.com/yj9dh58
Talking Points Memo: Poll: Specter In Serious Danger On Re-Election _ http://tinyurl.com/yz6amkr
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Poll shows Specter staring at “near fatal” 31% re-election figure _ http://tinyurl.com/ykqu82h
Real Clear Politics.com: Poll: 'Staggering' Numbers For Specter _ http://tinyurl.com/yg2o8wl
Run for the hills! Pat Toomey is coming!
What’s caused all this upset? A Susquehanna Polling and Research survey conducted Oct. 7 to 12. The poll shows only 31% of Pennsylvanians think that Specter deserves re-election next year. Usually, an incumbent’s numbers for re-election are much higher at this point in the cycle. A common yardstick for whether the incumbent will be re-elected is if his numbers are less than 40%.
The poll of 700 registered voters, conducted Oct. 7-12, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. That means that the 31% might be 3.7% too low or 3.7% too high or somewhere in-between. 31% + 3.7% = 34.7%. That is not a comforting equation. Maybe the numbers really are staggering.
Well, Chicken Littles, calm down. It’s extremely early days yet for next year’s election, and Arlen Specter is facing a very tough situation. Pennsylvania Democrats have barely had time to understand that he has switched parties, but bad news always travels fastest, so Pennsylvania Republicans have glommed on to that fact.
That means that Republicans who supported him in the last poll because they didn’t know he had changed parties polled against him this time, while the Democrats still think he’s a Republican, so they polled against him, too.
Furthermore, the country is still going through the turmoil over health insurance reform, and any incumbent is likely to take a beating for not having moved the process forward as quickly as the public would like. Furthermore, some past polls have shown that Pennsylvanians favor a single-payer system of health insurance, which is not what is in the current bills.
More encouraging are the numbers for a head-to-head matchup with his likely opponent, Rep. Patrick Toomey. Specter beat Toomey in the Republican primary six years ago, and he is running neck-and-neck with Toomey now, with 42% to Toomey’s 41%. Those numbers at this point are not surprising. Toomey has upped his name recognition by engaging in a statewide race, and he has had no party switch to muddy the waters. That 41% probably includes the moderate Republican voters who like Specter’s positions on issues and can be wooed back into his fold over the next 13 months.
If Specter is still pulling numbers like these after the first of the year – then I’d worry. But for now, he has plenty of time to remind voters of the advantages of having an experienced hand in Washington during what is sure to continue to be a trying time for the country – and to educate them about the disadvantages of voting for his opponents.
But I wouldn't worry too much about Specter. He has been around a long time and he's a survivor if there ever was one.
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