Archive for May, 2009

Pat Toomey has had an amazing three weeks of fundraising according to Politico’s Scorecard blog raising over a half a million dollars. With this kind of money, Toomey may be able to make his pitch to conservative Republicans and get his name out there before Ridge becomes too much of a threat. However, the very polling numbers I was searching for in my last post have been released. That is the numbers of a hypothetical primary match up between Tom Ridge and Pat Toomey. At the moment, the numbers for Toomey look pretty weak. According to the numbers released by Public Opinion Strategies Ridge defeats Toomey at a wopping 60% to Toomey’s 23%. The same polling showed Ridge defeating Specter in a general 48% to 41% and Specter defeating Toomey in a general 49% to 40%.

This looks like a pretty strong climate for a potential Ridge run, but again he has to defend a pro-choice record to an increasingly conservative Republican electorate and will also be receiving major ammo from the right from Pat Toomey who has proven himself to be a fundraising machine.

Another controversy that has sprung up is the fact that Tom Ridge’s current primary residence is not in Pennsylvania but rather a wealthy DC suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland. This could give Pat Toomey a good shot at throwing out some populist conservative rhetoric making Ridge seem less like a true Pennsylvanian, even though he was a popular governor of the state.

The bottom line is I do not think that Pat Toomey under any circumstance should be underestimated. As long as the state’s Republican Party keeps tipping farther and farther to the right it keeps looking better and better for Toomey. His fundraising performance has been spectacular and all he may need is a little name recognition and to drive the point home to social conservatives that Ridge, in fact, is not a social conservative.

I must say I was surprised to see how well, at least for now, the Specter defection has worked in his favor. Naturally, I was not surprised to see that the numbers indicate today Arlen Specter would easily defeat Pat Toomey who is pretty conservative for the general Pennsylvania electorate, but nevertheless has appeal to the Republican primary electorate. The Quinnipiac poll indicates that Specter would defeat Toomey 53-33%. However, the polls indicate that Specter’s main worry would be a potential run by former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge who is only down by three points with Specter at 46% and Ridge at 43% in a hypothetical match up.

I was also surprised to hear that Specter is still fairly popular among Pennsylvanians as well. He has a 52% approval rating versus a 34% disapproval rating. The big surprise, also, was how highly favorable he is among Democrats with a 77% approval rating even with his defection on the Employee Free Choice Act and some of the aftermath experienced (and not to mention that he was a Republican six days ago). Democrats also favor Specter over Toomey 85-4%.

So it looks like, at least for now, the switch has worked. Specter is favored by 20% (which seems a little low?) over Toomey and Ridge in union households, but still, my belief is that Specter will need to do some work in winning over the favor of big labor again. And of course, to me, the more siginificant numbers which I did not see reported, are the primary numbers between a hypothetical Ridge/Toomey match up. When we see those numbers, we will know how likely it is Specter will have the easy road or the more difficult road. However, these numbers probably will not be completely accurate until Toomey gets out on the trail and introduces himself to voters (57% of Republicans have not heard of him) and makes his inevitable case to conservatives that he is the pro life candidate as opposed to Ridge.

I would imagine that when Arlen Specter switched his party affiliation ahead of the 2010 Senate primaries that he believed to some extent he would be a shoo-in candidate. The support of top Democratic Party leaders was in tact, and Pat Toomey was considered far too conservative to have cross state appeal in the increasingly blue state of Pennsylvania. The story of the fight for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat has taken the ultimate twist beyond the wildest fantasies of most political dorks including myself. Today, Politico has reported that former popular Pennsylvania Governor turned first ever Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge is “seriously considering” a run for Senate. He is being courted as a moderate alternative to the very conserative Pat Toomey.

Honestly, it is my guess that Tom Ridge could easily defeat Pat Toomey in a primary. Obviously, it’s too early to have any numbers on a potential Tom Ridge run against Pat Toomey, but this story literally came out of nowhere and I imagine will have many speculating this week the future of that Senate seat. Assuming Specter and Ridge would both win their potential primaries it would be one of the strangest Senate races in contemporary history due to the fact that both of them are essentially moderate Republicans. They are both considered pro-choice conservatives who would  have pretty similar positions on most of the issues from what I can gather.

One thing is for certain, this will make Specter’s run for Senate quite difficult if Ridge runs and wins a Republican primary, certainly it would be an uphill climb especially since there will be a heavy notion in the air that Arlen Specter seems to be somewhat of a political opportunist. Not only that, it would be two candidates running against each other that were both closely affiliated to President Bush. All of this being said, we will be following all developments on this story very closely.