The candidates are Pat Toomey, the incumbent junior Senator vs. Katie McGinty, most recently Chief of Staff for Governor Tom Wolf. In the interest of full disclosure, I know Katie: she lives nearby and we’ve run our dogs together. I don’t know Pat Toomey, although as a constituent, I often call/write his office to complain. Okay, that’s that, now let’s get down to brass tacks.
As I mentioned last Sunday, most people (namely pollsters) see this as a toss-up, but I see Katie winning. If you look at the RCP average, it would look like a toss-up, with the candidates being essentially tied with one point either way, well within the margin of error. Cook has it as a toss-up, as does Sabato, and I could go on. But they’re wrong. Part of the issue is that the polls have been steadily moving from Pat being up by 7 – 10 points, but the margin keeps shrinking. Part of that was due to the fact that he had a lot of name recognition, and Katie had much less.
Generally, it’s a good thing that people know who you are, but this isn’t working out so well for Pat, who may be known, but has an overall -9 approval rating (30/39) and when asked whether people would be more or less likely to support him if he continued obstructionism related to Merrick Garland, that increased to 23/40 or -17. Franklin and Marshall has McGinty at 25/25, because the electorate is just starting to get to know her. From that same poll, which is also the most recent, having been run from 7/29 – 8/1, has Clinton at -2, Trump at -29, and their matchup at Clinton 47%, Trump 34% and Gary Johnson 7%.
Toomey is waffling on his support of Trump: “It certainly looks like Donald Trump is on his way to the nomination. That looks pretty clear after [the Indiana primary] and Ted Cruz getting out of the race. Donald Trump was not my first choice. He wasn’t my second choice or third or fourth choice. I have lots have differences with Donald Trump and lots of problems with him but I am absolutely in the ‘neverHillary Clinton’ camp.” Most of us locals view that statement as Pat will be voting for Donald. Not a good thing here in Southeastern Pennsylvania. It helps Pat in Southwestern Pennsylvania, but the race will be decided by Philadelphia and the collar counties.
Another thing that will move the needle quickly for Katie is that John Fetterman will be campaigning for and with her. He had mentioned this to me last week when we met up at the DNC, and said it would be publicly announced soon. Fetterman is from the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, and while some supporters are not yet sold on Hillary Clinton, they are committed to winning down ballot races, and may well turn out for her. Katie McGinty opened for Hillary Clinton a week ago Friday at the victory rally at Temple University, and you can expect to see her when Hillary returns to Pennsylvania.
Thus, while we can talk likely, lean, toss-up, the proof is in terms of what is going to happen on 8 November, and there’s a huge likelihood that Katie McGinty will be the next junior Senator from Pennsylvania. Pat is raising the issue of sanctuary cities, but it’s a much more complex issue then his tag lines would indicate, and his “proof” has been shot down by Jim Kenney, so that’s not going to hold water in the long run.
Remember that Katie won the three-way Senate primary by running her campaign out of DC, with virtually no local offices or involvement. It was something none of us locals had seen before. When we look at the money, as of 30 June, Pat has $7.6 million cash on hand compared to Katie’s $2.4 million, but there was a huge amount spent by outside groups during the primary, and its expected that those dollars will keep flowing, most notably from the DSCC ($2.6 million during the primary). There is also big money being spent against Pat Toomey by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers ($1.3 million to date), Senate Majority PAC ($2.7 million) and Women Vote ($3 million). Note: all dollar amounts are rounded. Not to say that there won’t be negative ads against Katie, but the playing floor is somewhat leveled.
One of the big issues in this race, given that Pennsylvania is the tipping point state, will be the relationship between the Senate candidates and their respective Presidential candidates. This was not the case when Pat was elected in 2010, it was a wave election and yet he won only by a little under 2 points over Joe Sestak, who received precious little support from national Democratic organizations and PACs. (And it’s why he lost the primary this year, but I digress.) Anyway, when we look at comparative races, we can see what happened in 2012 in terms of who won what where. And in a presidential year, coattails matter, especially in Senate races. (Since you’re going to ask, House races are more local and therefore less effected except in wave elections.)
Donald Trump is going to fight hard for Pennsylvania and his strength will come from Southwest Pennsylvania, which used to be solidly Democratic, but has gotten older and poorer, and now trends red. So the question becomes, will that help Pat Toomey? He already won those voters the last time he ran, and that’s part of what got him the win in 2008. A couple screen shots from Steve Kornaki (full video here – start at 8:17) tell the story:
Romney won the Southwest by 18 in 2008. Trump is up by 23 points in this area. Katie McGinty won’t even try in this area, and that’s a good thing as it would be a waste of resources. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the Southeastern portion of the state. Pat Toomey did okay during the 2010 wave election, and he did so by being able to get the votes of white, college educated, Republican voters. But again, not directly comparable, as this is a presidential election year. So let’s look at those numbers.
Barack Obama won the collar counties by 9 points in 2012. How is Hillary Clinton polling this week? Yes, she’s up by 40 points. And given that the registration is approximately 33-33-33 (or close enough) that means she is definitely pulling Republican votes. In fact, this may be the first year in the history of election polls that Hillary Clinton wins the white, college-educated vote nationwide, she’s currently polling 47%-40% over Donald. That will have a big influence on voters. While Pennsylvanians do split their votes, it’s unlikely that the will do so in this election, especially if Pat doesn’t run screaming from The Donald, which he shows no signs of doing. People will be unwilling to take that chance.
Thus, Katie McGinty is likely to win, not with as large a margin as Hillary Clinton, but big enough to move to DC.
