Via Quinnipiac: Ridge Trails Pennsylvania’s Specter By 3 Points, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; New Democratic Senator Tops Toomey By 20 Points
Newly-minted Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter would whip old Republican rival Pat Toomey 53 - 33 percent if the 2010 Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race were held today, but if popular former Gov. Tom Ridge becomes the Republican candidate, he trails Specter by just 46 - 43 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.Independent voters, who back Sen. Specter over Toomey 45 - 36 percent, switch to Ridge 47 - 37 percent if he becomes a candidate. The former Republican Governor also gets 14 percent of the Democratic vote, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.
This is not especially surprising; the reason that Specter made the switch was that the statewide electorate is far more moderate than the GOP base. As such, Specter versus a base candidate (i.e., Toomey) crushes said candidate, while he barely bests a moderate Republican (Ridge is pro choice). As such, Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said:
“Gov. Tom Ridge is probably the only political figure in Pennsylvania who could give Sen. Arlen Specter a run for his money. But even if he gets a strong challenge from a Republican, Specter is still better off for having changed parties because he seemed headed to certain defeat had he stayed a Republican and faced Toomey in a primary.”
The operative question is not, however, Ridge v. Specter, but rather Ridge v. Toomey in the Republican primary. The press release does not indicate those numbers. If the bottom line of the Specter move is that the GOP selectorate has become too conservative to nominate a moderate Republican, it strikes me as unlikely that Ridge would beat Toomey. Perhaps his popularity as governor would be sufficient to carry him to a win.
Sphere: Related Content
May 4th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Unless something rather dramatic changes in the major parties’ fortunes in Penn. in the next 9 months or so, I can’t imagine why someone of Ridge’s stature would want to take the risk to his reputation and run. He is a big name, but he’d have to get past two other big names to win. And past a very bad party brand and unfavorable party registration.
Why would he try it?
If he wants to be a Senator (of which one might be skeptical anyway), I would think he’d wait till the other seat opens up in what could be projected to be a much better year for Republicans (as almost any year farther out would almost have to be).
May 4th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Yup.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
While the poll doesn’t ponder the question of Ridge v. Toomey, it does ask about their favorability ratings. This leads to some insight on a GOP primary battle between the two and Ridge would seem to begin with the upper hand. Ridge has a net 73% fav/unfav with the GOP base and only had 15% of respondents say they haven’t heard of him. Toomey is not viewed negatively by the GOP base, but his “unknowns” are way to high despite having run a close race with Specter in his last bid for the Senate. His net fav. rating is 37%, but 57% of Republicans polled said they hadn’t heard fo him. The name recon problem plus the fact that I think the GOP establishment in the state would back Ridge would make any GOP challenge to a Ridge candidacy seem to be all but a forgone conclusion.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Tal,
The problem is that if the GOP base was willing to get behind a general election winner, Specter would still be a Republican. It may well be that Ridge could win the primary, but I am not sure that it would be a foregone conclusion. At any rate, I think MSS is correct: Ridge has no reason to even get involved at this point.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I was speaking simply about a GOP primary challenge between Ridge and Toomey because you mentioned that the press release didn’t mention numbers for that contest. I think that Specter would definitely have the upper hand against Ridge in the general, but with Toomey having been beaten by Specter before, the GOP est. would back Ridge in a primary. The numbers in the poll support such an assumption.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Tom Ridge is the perfect candidate; if the primary goal is to replace Arlen Specter the former quintessential RINO with another Arlen Specter.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
[...] the Quinnipiac poll, this one has Ridge beating Specter: Ridge (R) 48 Specter (D) 41 Undecided [...]