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.