Toomey for Senate

By Bruce Drake
PoliticsDaily.com

Toomey, the former congressman and onetime head of the conservative Club for Growth, has big leads among likely voters over Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Joe Sestak, the two Democrats contending for the Senate seat,
according to a Franklin & Marshall College poll conducted Feb. 15-21.

Toomey leads Specter by 44 percent to 34 percent with 6 percent preferring another candidate and 16 percent undecided, a slightly smaller margin than in this poll a month ago. Toomey gets 75 percent support from fellow Republicans to Specter;s 63 percent among Democrats. Independents favor Toomey by 36 percent to 15 percent with 13 percent preferring someone else and 36 percent undecided.

He leads Sestak 38 percent to 20 percent with 3 percent preferring someone else and 39 percent undecided. Again, a slightly smaller margin than a month ago.

Toomey and Sestak are still not well known among Pennsylvania voters with 62 percent not knowing enough about Toomey to voice a favorable or unfavorable opinion, while 77 percent are in the same position regarding Sestak. Unfortunately for Specter, that's not his problem -- he's known well enough to have 45 percent say they have an unfavorable view of him compared to 32 percent he see him positively.

As far as the Democratic primary, Specter continues to have a big lead over Sestak, besting him 33 percent to 16 percent with 44 percent undecided. In a general election match-up against Toomey, Sestak gets only 39 percent support from fellow Democrats.