October 5, 2016 | No Comments
A new series of polls from Quinnipiac University out Wednesday contains good news for Republican senators in three presidential-swing states but continues to show a razor-thin contest in once-safe North Carolina.
The most eye-popping result comes from Pennsylvania, where GOP Sen. Pat Toomey has an 8-point lead over Democrat Katie McGinty, 50 percent to 42 percent — even as the same poll showed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 4 points. Other polls in recent days have shown McGinty and Toomey tied or McGinty with a significant lead, but this survey opens up the possibility of Toomey running significantly ahead of Trump.
McGinty is struggling to consolidate Democrats and women in the new poll, losing the latter group to Toomey, 45 percent to 44 percent, and only winning 71 percent of Democrats.
In North Carolina, Democrat Deborah Ross and Republican Sen. Richard Burr are tied with 46 percent of the vote. The same poll has Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper earning 48 percent of the vote in the governor’s race, to incumbent Republican Pat McCrory’s 46 percent. Clinton had 46 percent of the vote in the presidential race poll, while Trump had 43 percent.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio leads Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, 48 percent to 44 percent, in their race. While various surveys have showed Murphy keeping the race close, the expensive nature of the state has led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to repeatedly cancel ad buys there. Clinton led Trump in the state, 46 percent to 41 percent.
The Ohio survey sees GOP Sen. Rob Portman continuing to crush former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, who has largely been abandoned by national Democrats after failing to raise money. Portman now leads, 55 to 38 percent, outpacing even Trump’s 47 percent to 42 percent lead over Clinton. Portman leads, 59 percent to 39 percent, among independent voters and even has the support of 15 percent of Democrats.
The Quinnipiac polls were conducted Sept. 27-Oct. 2, surveying 545 likely voters in Florida, 507 in North Carolina, 497 in Ohio and 535 in Pennsylvania. The Florida and Pennsylvania polls have margins of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points, and the North Carolina and Ohio polls have margins of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.