Toomey inches past Sestak in Rasmussen poll Published: Monday, June 07, 2010
By ALEX ROSE, arose@delcotimes.com
A new Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Wednesday shows Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey pulling ahead of his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Joseph Sestak, D-7, of Edgmont, by seven percentage points.
The survey of 500 likely Pennsylvania voters comes on the heels of one published last week by political website Daily Kos that showed Sestak holding a 3 percent lead.
Sestak won a contentious primary election May 18 over longtime incumbent U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., of Philadelphia and appeared to gain a polling bump after the victory.
A May 19 Rasmussen poll had Sestak leading Toomey by 4 points, but the survey released Friday indicated Toomey has overtaken Sestak 45 percent to 38 percent.
Another 5 percent would like another candidate while 12 percent remain undecided, according to the survey, which has a 4.5 percent margin of error and 95 percent confidence level.
The poll did not indicate how many of those surveyed were Republicans, Democrats or Independents, but an accompanying analysis said unaffiliated voters “strongly prefer” Toomey, while 34 percent of that same group aren’t committed to either candidate.
Toomey was viewed favorably by 55 percent of those polled, while Sestak had a 49 percent favorability rating. Another 30 percent viewed Toomey unfavorably, but 40 percent said the same of Sestak. Of those surveyed, 11 percent had no opinion of the Democrat and 16 percent had no opinion of the Republican.
According to the poll, a whopping 72 percent said they had followed the “offergate” story dogging Sestak and the White House.
A memo released last week by White House counsel Robert Bauer indicated White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asked former President Bill Clinton last July to test whether Sestak would take an uncompensated advisory position to President Barack Obama in exchange for staying out of the Senate race.
The White House maintains there was nothing untoward about the offer and that it broke no laws regarding tampering with races.
According to the Rasmussen poll, 52 percent said the issue is important enough to affect their votes and 41 percent said the offer is unimportant.
Of those who deemed the offer very important, 69 percent said they preferred Toomey in the race, while 61 percent who thought it was unimportant favor Sestak.
Sestak first told Larry Kane about the offer during an interview in February for Kane’s “Voice of Reason” show on the Comcast Network, but offered little in the way of detail.
Sestak recently sat down with Kane again and is expected to discuss the resulting controversy in more detail, according to National Review Online.
“If I thought anything had been done wrong, I would have talked about it in a heartbeat,” Sestak tells Kane, according to the National Review. “No one asked for seven or eight months, so I never brought it up. I didn’t think it was right to bring up.”
Sestak told Kane “many people” had tried to talk him out of running, according to the National Review. The congressman reportedly also tells Kane he thinks the White House should not meddle in primary elections.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina had encouraged Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff to seek one of three international development jobs rather than run against an Obama-backed candidate in that state’s Senate primary.
Romanoff said he was never offered a job and was not guaranteed appointment to any of the positions. U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is seeking internal White House documents about the White House’s political operations in certain races.
Kane’s interview aired 9:30 p.m. Sunday and in a KYW-1060 podcast.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
