Sen. Arlen Specter appears to be the man to beat in both the primary and general election battles for his long-held senate seat.
A new poll in Pennsylvania's Senate race shows the Democratic senator now leading conservative Pat Toomey, the Republican challenger whose candidacy drove the five-term incumbent out of the GOP last April.
The Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday reflects a significant change in a hypothetical general-election match up that the university found to be tied since last summer.
The university's polling institute could only assume Specter's campaign activity, such as mailings, or increased media coverage was responsible for the change, said Quinnipiac University polling assistant director Peter Brown.
The survey shows Specter leading Toomey 49 percent to 42 percent, a substantial edge over the former Allentown-area congressman who narrowly lost to Specter in the 2004 GOP primary.
Toomey was endorsed this year by the state GOP and is considered the front-runner for his party's nomination. The Toomey campaign said the poll is an anomaly compared to other polls that have put him ahead in the last six months.
The poll also says Specter maintains a decisive lead over U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak in the May 18 Democratic primary, 53 percent to 29 percent, a gap that has remained constant since May.
Politics
Sestak dismissed the result as reflective of a voter base that is not paying attention to the race yet.
His campaign has more cash on hand and better polling numbers than Toomey had when he took on Specter in 2004, Sestak said.
“We're a little ahead of where we thought we would be at this time,” Sestak said Monday after a campaign event in Harrisburg.
The telephone poll of 1,452 Pennsylvanians was conducted during the week that ended Sunday. The sampling error margin is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
