Dem
51
GOP
49
In 2022, the NRSC tried in vain to get Connecticut resident and wealthy hedge fund manager David McCormick the Republican senatorial nomination over New Jersey resident and television quack Mehmet Oz. Oz won the GOP nomination but the general election was won by now-Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). This year there is another Senate election in Pennsylvania, with Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) up for reelection. Again the NRSC tried to have McCormick be the GOP nominee, and this time it might work. But getting your favorite guy to be the nominee is not the same as winning the seat.
A new Emerson College poll has Casey at 49% and McCormick at 39%, with the rest undecided. Part of Casey's lead is due to independents, who favor the Senator by 21 points. Casey does especially well with highly educated voters, with 60% of voters with a postgraduate degree supporting him.
One advantage that Casey has, as all incumbents do, is that he is much better known, especially since McCormick has never held elective office and doesn't even live in Pennsylvania. No doubt Casey is going to bring this up a few times later this year, possibly complimenting his opponent on leaving musty old Connecticut for the vibrant state of Pennsylvania.
The poll also asked about the presidential race. When the only choices were Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Trump won 45% to 43%. However, when Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein were also offered as options, Trump dropped 3 points to 42% and Biden dropped 6 points to 37%. This supports the conventional wisdom that the third-party candidates hurt Biden more than they hurt Trump. Many of the defectors are probably progressive Democrats who think Biden is too timid and who don't like his position on Israel. But remember, historically, early in the cycle, lots of people tell the pollsters they aren't going to take it anymore and will vote third party, but in the end the thought of the other team winning gets to them and they come home.
Quinnipiac University also just released a national poll. In a head-to-head race, it has Biden at 49% and Trump at 45%. When the third-party candidates were included, Trump dropped 8 points and Biden dropped 11 points. It is hard to reconcile these two polls. They are in direct conflict, since Pennsylvania's electorate pretty closely mirrors the national electorate. It is possible that the two firms have very different models of the electorate. However, one thing that both of them show is that the third-party candidates hurt Biden more than Trump. This is a feature, not a bug. West and Stein don't expect to win. What they want to do is show the Democrats that while third-party candidates can't win, they can cause the Democrats to lose, so the Democrats had better adopt all their policies. Of course if the Democrats did this, the Green Party would just move the goalposts farther to the left and make new demands. And who knows what Kennedy wants. We sure don't. (V)