Two recent polls in the neighboring states of Maryland and Pennsylvania show both a caustic gubernatorial race and a crucial U.S. Senate race, both getting much tighter than previously shown. Yet, there’s much good news to extrapolate from the data as Democrats appear to either close gaps or maintain solid leads in two states that are considered among the more critical in the 2010 election cycle.
And considering the massive size of African American voting blocs in both states, strategists are watching closely to see if recent visits and large scale rallies by President Barack Obama have anything to do with the recent surges. Despite trailing by 9 points less than three months ago, Democratic nominee Rep. Joe Sestak (D) suddenly bumped ahead of Republican nominee Pat Toomey (R) by one point, 46% to 45% according to a recent Public Policy Polling survey found here.
“Toomey’s support has remained stagnant over the last 2 months while Sestak’s has gone up 10 points from 36% to 46%,” observes PPP’s Tom Jensen. “Democratic voters are getting more engaged as election day moves closer. The enthusiasm gap is still there but it’s not as severe a problem for Democrats as it was 2 months ago. Sestak has wiped out what was an enormous deficit with independents. In August Toomey led 50-27 with them.”
Some key findings in the poll: 78% of African Americans say they support Sestak, compared to 42% of Whites. A problem for Sestak in energizing the Black base in PA is that 19% of African Americans, according to the PPP survey, favor Toomey. This actually mirrors the level of Black Pennsylvanian support for the President, which is also problematic: 78% approve of his performance while 19% disapprove. Only 9% of the respondents polled in this survey are African American, despite the fact that over 13% of the state’s population is Black.
In Maryland, where Black voters are nearly 30 percent of the state’s electorate, current Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) finds himself in the lead against former Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R), 47% to 42% in a recent Gonzales Research poll. While that may be promising to O’Malley’s camp (eager to see a bump from recent Obama visits in places like Baltimore and Bowie), the Ehrlich camp may be drawing some comfort from the fact that gap is a bit closer than what was shown in a recent Rasmussen poll with O’Malley ahead by 8 points and a Washington Post poll with him ahead by 11.
“The O’Malley campaign’s media barrage against Ehrlich is having its intended effect,” notes pollster Patrick Gonzales. “
wo weeks before the election, Ehrlich has become the incumbent… O’Malley’s negatives among Republicans and independents are up since July, but this election has always been about securing the base, and his campaign appears to be doing that heading into the November 2nd election.”
According to Gonzales, Democratic voter turnout – or the lack thereof – could be a major factor for O’Malley. Turnout during the Democratic primary was down 27% from 2006 in contrast to GOP turnout which was up 23% from that same year. Gonzales predicts Democratic turnout will decrease by 7% while Republican turnout will increase by 11%.
http://politic365.com/2010/10/20/obama-helps-tighten-races-in-pa-md/
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