#PAGov: Corbett Ads Taking No Toll on Tom Wolf’s Polling

Share With Friends

I bet Larry Ceisler’s been having a fun summer watching PoliticsPA go from being essential political reading to being less essential even than the Morning Call’s basically non-existent politics blog. What the hell yo?

Anyway, this was one of the worst polling analyses I’ve ever read, and I don’t know if it was intentionally bad for click-bait reasons, or if it was just bad-bad, but here’s what you need to know.

“Leaners” and “likely voters” are different things. One measures candidate preferences. The other is an educated guess about who’s actually going to show up. A leaner is somebody who’s leaning toward a particular candidate. And a likely voter is who a pollster thinks will vote. Nick’s post weirdly conflates these two things, to make a point that doesn’t make sense. Colleen K catalogs the derp at length if you want to get into it.

The rest of you will do fine just looking at this updated chart of the general election polling:

Screen shot 2014-08-03 at 11.17.57 PM

What it shows is that Tom Wolf’s support is basically unchanged after a summer of ineffective Corbett attack ads, but some Republicans and right-leaning independents have remembered why they’re Republicans, so Corbett’s polling is climbing up from the basement a bit.

No surprise there. All the Keystone Politics writers have been saying this was going to happen for over a year now. The race is going to keep tightening a bit, but the fundamental shape of the contest is no different.

This entry was posted in Elections, Governor.

6 Responses to #PAGov: Corbett Ads Taking No Toll on Tom Wolf’s Polling

  1. AngusPA says:

    It’s been downhill since Britt foster left

  2. Jon Geeting says:

    We’ll try to pick up the slack this fall. I’m over at PlanPhilly full time so our production has been sliding too. But my hope is that we’re insightful/entertaining when we do weigh in.

  3. Julieann Wozniak says:

    I do not live in Philly. I live over here in Greene. Corbett’s never actually been here (besides that one campaign event four years ago), but his policies are killing us. He’s also widely hated. Forgive me as I fast forward past his insulting adverts…nothing turns me away faster than assuming I’m stupid!

  4. Pingback: 8/5 Morning Buzz | PoliticsPA

  5. dude says:

    The Corbett negative ads are not designed to damage Wolf among his core supporters, they are intended to motivate Republicans to vote for Corbett. The poll shows that they are accomplishing that goal. Corbett’s aim is to pull this close and then rely on the historic laziness of democratic voters.