Reuters-Ipsos poll: Pennsylvania Senate race tied with one week left
The Pennsylvania Senate race has tightened up considerably a week before the Nov. 2 election and is likely to be hard fought to the end.
Republican Pat Toomey, who had a 10 percentage point advangate among likely voters in August, is now locked in a tight race with Democrat Joe Sestak — tied at 46 percent, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll.
They are battling for the seat of Senator Arlen Specter who lost to Sestak in the Democratic primary. Pennsylvania is one of the key states that will determine whether Republicans can pick up the 10 Democratic seats they need to seize majority in the Senate.
The White House has been watching the latest polls on this race with great interest and President Barack Obama will visit Pennsylvania during his final campaign push this weekend with the aim of giving Sestak an added boost.
“There are only 6 percent remaining who are undecided so this race will most likely continue to be hard fought until election day,” Ipsos pollsters say.
More participants gave Sestak higher marks than Toomey for policies on China 33-28 pct, keeping jobs in the United States 37-31 percent, and standing up for America’s interests 40-34 percent. Toomey scored better than Sestak on the issue of balancing the budget 36-28 percent.
In the Pennsylvania governor’s race, Republican Tom Corbett has a 6 percentage point advantage among likely voters over Democrat Dan Onorato, 49-43 percent. This is a closer race than seen in the August poll when Corbett had a 15 percentage point advantage.
Reuters/Ipsos poll: Republican leads in Pennsylvania for Specter’s Senate seat
Republicans have the momentum going into Election Day for the U.S. Senate seat held by Arlen Specter for three decades in Pennsylvania.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll of likely voters showed Republican Pat Toomey with a 10-point lead, 47-37 percent, over Democrat Joe Sestak. That gap narrowed among a broader pool of registered voters to 40-37 percent.
Sestak beat Specter in the Democratic primary after the senior senator from Pennsylvania turned Democrat in April 2009 ahead of his battle for re-election to the Senate seat he first won as a Republican 30 years ago. President Barack Obama had backed Specter.
The poll shows it wouldn’t have made any difference if Specter had won the Democratic primary, with likely voters in Pennsylvania supporting Toomey over Specter 52-40 percent.
“This suggests that the GOP has genuine momentum here outside of the identities of individual candidates and isn’t necessarily just benefiting from the fallout from the Democratic Primary,” Ipsos pollsters say.
Did the president influence Pennsylvania voters? Fifty-nine percent of registered voters said Obama’s endorsement of Specter over Sestak made no difference in their decision on how to vote.
The Republican candidate also leads in the Pennsylvania governor’s race — Tom Corbett has 15 points over Democrat Dan Onorato, 49-34 percent, among likely voters. That gap narrowed in a broader pool of registered voters to 43-37 percent.
The Day After: everyone’s got an opinion
Everyone’s got an opinion about what happened Tuesday when Senator Arlen Specter — long-term Republican, newly turned Democrat — lost the Pennsylvania primary, Tea Party candidate Ron Paul won the Senate Republican primary in Kentucky, and neither Democrat in the Arkansas Senate primary could muster 50 percent of the vote so they have to do it all over again in June.
In all of the contests, there was only one person who won an actual seat in Congress on Tuesday night — Democrat Mark Critz who took the special election for the Pennsylvania district seat left vacant by the death of Rep. John Murtha earlier this year.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs @PressSec tweeted “Sort of says it all…” with a link to a Politico story headlined “The GOP’s special failure.”
Talking Points Memo wrote that National Republicans were the “big loser.”
Interesting take in a Washington Post blog by Jonathan Capehart who said the Democrat win in Pennsylvania’s special election might actually be a problem for President Barack Obama because Critz is pro-life, pro-guns, and against the new healthcare law.
And many are pointing to Paul’s win as a sign that the Tea Party movement cannot be ignored.
Our own political correspondent John Whitesides found that both parties saw glimmers of hope in Tuesday’s rubble for the November midterm elections — the ones that will really, really count.
Specter Loses, “Tea Party” Wins
It’s curtains for Arlen Specter’s career in the U.S. Senate. The veteran senator from Pennsylvania went down in defeat on Tuesday, losing to challenger Rep. Joe Sestak in a tight race for the Democratic Senate nomination.
Specter’s loss makes him the latest incumbent to get the boot from angry voters unhappy with just about everybody in Washington.
Specter has served in the Senate for 30 years but his political fortune may have been sealed last year when he switched party allegiance from Republican to Democrat.
During the campaign, Specter offered Pennsylvania voters his clout, experience and seniority — but it wasn’t enough to hold off Sestak, a two-term congressman who waged an aggressive campaign against Specter.
“It’s been a great privilege to serve the people of Pennsylvania, “ the senator said. His brief concession speech in Philadelphia was interrupted by a man in the audience who shouted: “Thank you, Arlen.”
Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, a jubilant Sestak claimed victory.
“This is what Democracy looks like – a win for the people over the establishment, over the status quo, even over Washington, DC, ” Sestak said to cheering supporters.
I for one, did not say “2 to 1 in favor of democrats”. I said, 2 to 1 democrat. I will write it slowly for you. 2 democrats to every 1 republican.
No matter what you want to say, it is no big surprise the democrat won.
You are not capable of discussing the issues, you are just a harasser who is an empty vessel.
Pennsylvania primary: undecideds may decide it
The Pennsylvania Democratic primary may end up decided by the undecideds.
Senator Arlen Specter and Congressman Joe Sestak are vying for the Democratic vote in Tuesday’s primary, which will determine who runs against the Republican candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate seat in November.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday shows the race is too close to call — with Sestak at 42 pecent versus Specter at 41 percent. Add to the mix 16 percent undecided and 25 percent saying they might change their mind, and the vote could go any which way.
“Sen. Arlen Specter has the party organization behind him, which should help with turnout. But Congressman Joe Sestak could benefit from the relatively large group of undecided voters. Generally, incumbents don’t do all that well with undecideds, who are more likely to vote for the challenger or not vote,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
“Moreover, as we have seen elsewhere this spring, there is an anti-incumbent mood in the electorate and Specter, with 30 years in the Senate, is the ultimate incumbent,” he said. The survey of 951 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted May 12-16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
Others to watch on Tuesday:
Arkansas Senate Democratic primary, which pits incumbent Blanche Lincoln against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. The most recent polls show Lincoln in the lead, but if the other candidate, D.C. Morrison, captures enough votes to prevent Lincoln from getting 50 percent, that would force a June 8 rematch with Halter.
Final round in Specter vs. Sestak coming up
The final bell is about to ring in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary for the Senate — and it’s a nail-biter. Who will win the chance to run against the Republican in November?
In one corner is Senator Arlen Specter who has 30 years in the Senate, but for the first time faces voters as a Democrat after switching parties last year.
In the other corner is Representative Joe Sestak who won his first election to Congress four years ago by unseating 20-year Republican incumbent Curt Weldon.
Whoever wins, the political pundits will point to it as a barometer of voter angst about incumbents in 2010.
Right now the public opinion polls are showing a dead heat.
Specter has received the endorsement of big newspapers in Pennsylvania — The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Patriot-News. The liberal-leaning MoveOn.org just announced that its membership endorsed Sestak.
One person who is staying away from the Democrat vs. Democrat Pennsylvania Senate primary as it comes down to the wire is the First Democrat himself, President Barack Obama.
StevenOOo
Yeah, whatever.
I will never forget all the sniveling and whining by people like you about any republican…both past and present.
Obama is still whining about Bush. OMG…you all constantly whine about the republicans.
Obama is a horrible president. Look at his 45 percent approval rating and you will see the majority of Americans agree with me. That’s a fact you cannot get over or understand.
Stop with your whining about republicans….Just stop.
To reach Supreme Court, first court the senators
Elena Kagan is making the rounds.
To get a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, a nominee must first wear out a lot of shoe leather on Capitol Hill. And smile, smile, smile.
So that’s precisely what President Barack Obama’s choice for the high court has been doing this week. While Kagan is considered likely to get Senate confirmation, nothing is ever guaranteed in this process – remember President George W. Bush’s nominee Harriet Miers?
The other hard-and-fast rule of these Hill chats is that afterward the senators talk, the Supreme Court nominee doesn’t.
So let’s take a look at what the senators took away from their meetings with Kagan.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who used to be a Republican, said Kagan agreed with him that the court takes too few cases and erred this year in a landmark ruling that struck down campaign finance limits. “She said she felt that the court was not sufficiently deferential to Congress” in the Citizens United case, Specter said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the meeting left him confident that Kagan was the right choice to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. “She has a strong belief that the Supreme Court should be a forum where the rule of law wins out and where people from every walk of life can receive a fair hearing.”
Specter believes Senate would reject filibuster against Obama’s pick for high-court ‘ideological battleground’
The person who arguably knows as much as anyone in the U.S. Senate about counting votes and judicial confirmation battles has some advice for President Barack Obama:
Pick a U.S. Supreme Court nominee without regard to a possible Republican procedural roadblock known as a filibuster.
Senator Arlen Specter said Obama also needs to make his selection understand that the nation’s highest court is an ideological battleground that has moved sharply to the right in recent years.
In a Senate speech on Monday, Specter said he believes there will be the 60 votes needed in the 100-member Senate to end any filibuster against Obama’s upcoming pick to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, the court’s leading liberal.
“As divisive as the Senate has become and as partisan as the Senate has become, I believe there are 60 votes in this chamber to reject the concept of a filibuster,” Specter said.
Senate Republicans have said a filibuster is unlikely but they haven’t ruled out the possibility if they believe his pick is outside the judicial mainstream.
Specter bolted from the Republican Party last year and became a Democrat. At 80, Specter is now in a tough battle to win a sixth, six-year Senate term from his home state of Pennsylvania in the November congressional election.
Hillary says Congressional gridlock challenges U.S. world stature
The partisan gridlock that has paralyzed Congress during much of the Obama administration may have far-reaching implications for America’s stature in the world, according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton said U.S. partners overseas have been confused about the Senate’s inability to approve President Barack Obama’s appointments to top diplomatic jobs, including assistant secretary of state positions and ambassadorships.
“It became harder and harder to explain to countries, particularly countries of significance, why we had nobody in position for them to interact with,” Clinton told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Obama budget plan for fiscal year 2011.
She said the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers U.S. civilian foreign aid to countries including quake-stricken Haiti, still lacks a complete team to run its operations.
Clinton als0 went further, under questioning from Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a former Republican who jumped to the Democratic Party in 2009.
Specter asked if she could confirm his perception that congressional gridlock has weakened Obama and the U.S. presidency overseas during the past year.
“There is certainly a perception that I encounter in representing our country around the world that supports your characterization. People just don’t understand the way our system operates, they just don’t get it,” replied Clinton, who is Obama’s top adviser on foreign policy.
I imagine it would have to be quite difficult for officials in other countries to understand why key American posts were left vacant for months, or worse, are still empty now. What’s the Secretary of State supposed to say, “Well, I’m terribly sorry, Prime Minister, but we have no under-secretary for you to work with because Richard Shelby wants some pork for Alabama”?
Or maybe, “I’d like to refer you, Foreign Minister, to our ambassador, but more than a year after the president took office, only a majority of our Senate approves of the nomination, which means she can’t get confirmed”?
The consequences of Republicans denying up-or-down votes to key administration nominees go beyond mere annoyance. Deliberately or not, the genuinely scandalous GOP tactics are not only blocking the ability of policymakers to govern domestically, but also undercutting U.S. influence around the world.
If only Republicans could get past their petty partisanship long enough to care.
What a difference a year makes
A year ago, Senator Arlen Specter was on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania — appearing for a fellow Republican senator, John McCain, who was in an intense race for the presidency against a Democratic senator, Barack Obama. The two presidential candidates both spent a great deal of time in the swing state, which ended up going Democratic in the November election.
A year later, Specter is busy on the campaign trail again in another tough Philadelphia political battle, his own bid for reelection. But this time, the former moderate Republican is a Democrat. And he wielded the Democrats’ most formidable election weapon at an evening of fundraising on Tuesday — President Barack Obama.
Specter left the Republican party earlier this year, helping to strengthen the Democratic majority in Congress. To thank the 79-year-old, Obama had said he would stand by Specter even in a primary fight to be nominated as the Democratic candidate to retain his Senate seat in 2010.
And he stood by him on Tuesday. Obama spoke at two different fundraising events in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer said the twin Specter events were expected to raise close to $2.5 million, the goal of the evening. Obama touted Specter’s record and qualities to an audience of several hundred supporters who had donated $1,000 to $4,800 each. Slightly hoarse after a day of speeches to auto workers, the AFL-CIO and Specter supporters, Obama later spoke again at a sit-down dinner for a group of big donors to Specter and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Aides said Obama posed for 100 pictures with the 200 dinner attendees, two of them at a time.
Obama hailed Specter as “a man who has always put his state before politics, before party.”
Specter praised Obama as “a transformational candidate moving toward being a transformational president.”
Specter knows about transformation.
