WASHINGTON — The first poll since former hedge fund CEO David McCormick announced his candidacy for U.S. Senate gives three-term Democratic incumbent Bob Casey a lead over his Republican challenger.
Casey was ahead of Cormick, 50% to 44%, in a Quinnipiac University survey of registered Pennsylvania voters released Wednesday. That’s outside the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
McCormick lost the 2022 GOP Senate primary to celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who ran in a crowded field with former President Donald Trump’s backing. But the state party has unified behind McCormick this time around.
“David McCormick, who defied former President Trump by refusing to say the 2020 election was stolen, dusts himself off from his previous Senate bid and comes back for more in what is immediately an intensely watched and competitive race with three term incumbent Senator Bob Casey,” Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy said.
Close to half of the state’s voters, 48%, approved of Casey’s job performance in the survey, with 31% disapproving. Gov. Josh Shapiro fared even better, with 53% approving of his performance in office and 27% disapproving.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, the Democrat who defeated Dr. Oz last fall, was in negative territory, with 48% disapproving and 41% approving. The poll was conducted during the controversy surrounding the Senate dress code, which called attention to Fetterman’s preferred wardrobe of a hoodie and shorts.
Fetterman’s sartorial choices did not register on a list of important issues. Pennsylvania voters said the economy was the most urgent issue (30%), followed by threats to democracy (23%) and immigration (15%). Abortion, which helped Democrats defy forecasts of a red wave in the 2022 midterm elections, was only at 4%.
In the 2024 presidential race in the nation’s most populous battleground state, the difference between Trump and President Joe Biden was well within the margin of error, with Trump ahead, 47% to 45%, in a possible rematch of their 2020 contest.
Both candidates had similar approval ratings, too: Biden was viewed favorably by 39% and unfavorably by 57%, while Trump had 40% positive and 56% negative ratings.
“Biden vs. Trump: same as it ever was, setting up another likely bare-knuckled brawl between the two candidates in Biden’s home state,” Malloy said.
While Trump still has to overcome a large field of candidates to win the Republican nomination, he was well ahead of the pack and improved his position compared with a similar survey in June, even after four criminal indictments.
Trump received 61% support among Pennsylvania Republicans in the survey, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had 25%. In June, Trump led DeSantis, 49% to 14%. None of the other Republican candidates were in double figures in the latest poll.
The survey of 1,725 self-identified registered voters was conducted Sept. 28 to Oct. 2. A subset of 711 self-identified registered Republican voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
