Poll: Sestak, Toomey Tied

Rep. Joe Sestak is running for Senate in Pennsylvania. | Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/progressohio/">ProgressOhio</a> (<a href="http://www.creativecommons.org">Creative Commons</a>).

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows Pennsylvania Senate candidates Pat Toomey (a former Republican congressman and derivatives pioneer) and Joe Sestak (a former admiral and current Democratic congressman) in a statistical tie. Along with most observers, I thought this one was finished—polling guru Nate Silver gives Toomey a 94 percent chance of winning the seat.

The bad news for Democrats is that Silver’s probably right. Almost all public polling of this race has shown Toomey ahead—which suggests the PPP poll is an outlier. But who knows. The media was fixated on Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle early in the election cycle. Maybe now that Pennsylvania Democrats are paying attention, they’re becoming more familiar with Toomey’s twice-as-conservative-as-Rick-Santorum record. In a state like Pennsylvania, where the Dems have a massive registration advantage, that could be enough to save Sestak. But if Sestak can pull off a comeback, it will mark a remarkable string of political success for him—first coming back in the polls to beat incumbent GOPer-turned-Dem Arlen Specter in the primary, and then coming back to beat Toomey. The White House backed Specter in the primary, but I’m sure they like the sound of that.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate