By Kevin Zwick
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (Sept. 15) – Democrat Tom Wolf: He’s acceptable enough.
Not a banner campaign slogan. But most likely voters who are backing the Democrat aren’t drawn to Candidate Wolf as much as they’re rejecting Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
A slim majority (51 percent) said so, while 39 percent of the Democrat’s backers say they’re voting mainly for Wolf because he’s Wolf.
Those numbers show voters are “ready for a new vision” after nearly four years of Corbett, said Wolf campaign spokesman Jeffrey Sheridan.
Love him or just think he’s “likeable enough,” it doesn’t matter, according to analysts, who say he just needs to be an acceptable alternative to Corbett.
Wolf is “very vanilla,” said long-time political observer from the Democratic side, PR consultant Larry Ceisler. But “he becomes a very convenient vehicle for the dissatisfaction with Tom Corbett.”
The poll suggests any Democrat would be doing fine. Granted, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz had an extensive legislative record with a number of votes that would likely be at odds with Pennsylvanians outside of suburban Philadelphia, and the loquacious state Treasurer, Rob McCord, tacked left during the primary and let fly some off-putting insults about Corbett. Those two candidates could have given Corbett a chance to make the race about them and not his first term.
Instead? “Corbett got as bad a draw as he could,” Ceisler said.
Terry Madonna, a political analyst and pollster at Franklin and Marshall College, said Wolf only needs to be an acceptable alternative to Corbett.
“For Tom Wolf, when he faces an incumbent who’s got a low job performance and is not popular, he has to be an acceptable candidate – not a superior candidate,” Madonna said.
Typically, a re-election campaign is a referendum on the incumbent’s record. Voters scarcely support the challenger over an incumbent just for being the challenger.
“No – it’s because they don’t like the incumbent,” Ceisler said.
One Republican consultant said the poll isn’t doing the governor any favors.
“Twenty-four points down this late in the game is a heck of a ditch to get out of, but, then again, polling numbers have been all over the place and internals could be showing a much closer race so let’s not call the race yet,” the consultant said. “But the Corbett campaign has gotta step up their game.”
Corbett campaign spokesman Billy Pitman had this to say about the Quinnipiac poll: “We continue to set the record straight on Governor Corbett’s record as we introduce Pennsylvanians to the real Tom Wolf. While many recent polls have shown numbers all across the spectrum, we are confident that the only poll that matters on Election Day will result in Governor Corbett’s re-election to a second term.”
The Corbett campaign has touted some polls, one that used a questionable method and another from a GOP firm, to say the race is tighter (but with Corbett still behind, in some cases, by double-digits – in the 10- to 15-point range), claiming the more traditional polls – such as Madonna’s F&M polls that show Wolf with a double-digit lead similar to the Quinnipiac poll– are the “outliers,” oversampling Democratic voters.
But one GOP lobbyist, when the Quinnipiac poll was released last week, said: “A some point the outliers become a trend. That point was made clear today.”
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