Main reason is that the conservative wing of PA politics has turned its back on Santorum. Pretty foolish, if you ask me. Beggars can't be choosers.
I'm not totally stunned.. Casey is very popular here. There's still plenty of coattails from his daddy left to ride.
If the election were held today, without a campaign, I would guess Casey would win by about 6.. Maybe a little more.
Not the situation you want to be in as an incumbent, down 6-8 to your challenger before the campaign even began.
i figure this one is lost and RI as well
TN is a tossup
dont know anything about any of the others but it probably does not bode well for our team in 06
What about Zogby? :)
Does anyone REALLY BELIEVE that Rick is 14 points down? Smells like a rat push poll to me.
But did they ask all voters or just Republicans? It is meaningless if they asked Democrats too.
Adults? Non-adults? Registered voters? Likely voters? %Dem? %GOP?
This poll is 100% meaningless.
If Bush starts to bring some of the troops back home we will will be surprised as to who will win. It's not over till it's over.
We need to face reality and the truth is that PA is trending 'Rat. It has gone 'Rat in the last four presidential elections and elected a Philly machine 'Rat as Governor. Santorum's conservative leanings will be bucking a strong 'Rat undercurrent. He, and the national GOP, are going to have to fight like hell to hold this seat. While it is true that there is a year and a half to go before the vote, starting out this far behind puts you in a big hole. Playing catchup, especially from this far back, is generally not where an incumbent wants to be. The 'Rats will keep Santorum on the defensive by linking his conservative message with George Bush, and 'Pubs generally don't play well on the defensive side of the ball.
Independent? Quinnipiac? Snort!
Be careful of independent polls. Last year in the Dr. Coburn race a short time before the election Brad Carson the RAT went up in the independent polls and Speaker of the House Hastert said the race was lost in OK. Some of our delegation went through the roof at Hastert for believing the polls from independents.
Turned out the Dems had commissioned the poll but there was a slight problem -- the poll was not only cooked, it was fraudulent -- only Dems were called and even then very few but the Tulsa World bit and splashed it all over. It was a phoney poll and the RATS knew it but it didn't stop them from going to AP and others.
BTW, Dr. Coburn won by 12 points! Polls this far out are unreliable to start with and never trust an independent poll if Oklahoma is an example of what the DNC is using for polling. :)
Wait until the campaign. I expect both Bush and Specter will be out there working for Rick. If they're not, then the GOP is an utterly useless party and I'll be done with them forever.
The country club types are never letting go of the party, and they happen to like income taxes and dead babies. The taxes keep other people from getting wealthy, and the dead babies keep the population of the ghettos in check, don't ya know?
Basically, the Republican party has become the party of big business. As a small businessman, some of that helps me. But a lot of it is detrimental, since they continually use government to erect barriers to competition and lock in markets for themselves. Frankly, it is starting to stink. Maybe Casey will help to bring about a reality check.
Don't lose hope, fellow conservatives. Santorum won't be the first ultimately victorious senator to find himself in this position. Election Day is still a long ways off!
Santorum will pay for swinging to the left. And so it goes.