A statewide poll shows Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, both Democrats, leading their Republican challengers and more than two-thirds of Pennsylvania voters saying an independent commission should draw state legislative districts rather than lawmakers.
According to the poll by the Lancaster-based Franklin & Marshall College, Wolf has a 48-to-29-percent lead over former state Sen. Scott Wagner, a York County Republican who recently resigned from the Senate to focus on the campaign against Wolf.
Twenty-three percent of respondents said they are undecided in the governor’s race.
Casey, D-Scranton, leads U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-11, Hazleton, 44 to 27 percent, with 28 percent undecided. Barletta beat state Rep. Jim Christiana, R-15, Brighton Township, in the GOP primary to capture the nomination.
Pollsters described the Wolf’s and Casey’s leads as “comfortable” but noted that many Republicans and independents are undecided and neither Wagner nor Barletta are well known among voters. Asked about favorable/unfavorable ratings for candidates, 47 percent said they did not know enough about Wagner to answer while 66 percent said the same about Barletta.
Forty-five percent of voters said Wolf is doing an excellent or good job, and 33 percent said fair. As for Casey, 42 percent said he is doing an excellent or good job, with 29 percent saying fair.
Among all voters, 50 percent said they preferred the Democratic candidate in U.S. House races, compared to 36 percent choosing the GOP candidate.
Less than half of voters, 48 percent, rated President Donald Trump’s job performance as excellent, good or fair, but 52 percent rated it as poor.
Sixty-nine percent of voters said they favored state legislative districts be drawn by an independent commission rather than legislators. Those results come after the state Senate passed a bill Wednesday to amend the state constitution and have an independent commission do so.
However, that bill also includes a GOP amendment to create regional judicial electoral districts for statewide courts, a move Democrats insist is retaliatory for the state Supreme Court’s decision to toss out the congressional districts map because it unfairly favored Republicans.
Fifty-nine percent said they have not seen an increase in their household income following the Republican tax cuts bill passed in December, while 33 percent said they had. Of those who responded they had seen an increase, 63 percent said it was small.
The poll surveyed 472 registered voters between June 4 and 10. The margin of error is plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.