Posted on 06/22/2022 10:29:22 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
He’s not doomed, for the simple reason that no Republican is doomed in a year like this one unless they’re running in a D+15 jurisdiction. Pennsylvania is considerably redder than that. Oz will have a fighting chance all the way to Election Day.
And there’s something else working for him, the John Fetterman health crisis. It may be that complications from his stroke will leave Fetterman unable to campaign in earnest this summer and fall, either forcing Dems to replace him on the ballot with someone less popular or asking Pennsylvania swing voters to gamble that he’ll be able to do the job of a senator if they elect him. As I write this, Fetterman still has yet to return to the trail despite having had his heart scare more than a month ago. Maybe doubts about his fitness will tip the scales to Oz in the end.
But as things stand today, there’s no way to absorb this AARP poll and not come away thinking the GOP is at dire risk of losing this seat in a national environment in which they shouldn’t be losing anywhere that’s remotely competitive. Ask yourself where you’d expect a generic Republican candidate to be polling in Pennsylvania knowing that Biden’s job approval there looks like this:
My eyes glazed over at that split among independents. Pitted against a generic Democrat, I’d expect a generic Republican to be leading 54/46 or thereabouts with an anchor as heavy as Biden around Team Blue’s ankles. Against a good candidate like Fetterman, maybe I’d make it 52/48.
But Oz isn’t a generic Republican. Oz is … this guy:
He’s down double digits in net favorability in every demographic except Republicans and he’s not lighting up the scoreboard with them either. Somehow, despite months of rising inflation and soaring gas prices, Oz’s favorable rating is worse than Biden’s approval rating. Fetterman, meanwhile, pulls a 46/36 overall favorability and is +80 net within his own party in contrast to Oz’s +15 among Republicans.
Put it all together and Fetterman leads, 50/44. Again, that’s not doom — especially when we remember how pollsters lowballed Republican support in 2020 — but even a strong Democratic candidate has no business leading (let alone reaching 50 percent) in a swing-state Senate race in the year of a Republican tsunami. Oz is just a bad, unpopular candidate, likely too centrist for MAGA fans, too Trumpy for Democrats, too sketchy from his years of new-age TV doctoring for undecideds, and too much of a carpetbagger for everyone.
You can’t console yourself with the idea that the AARP data is an outlier either. It isn’t. Last week a Suffolk poll showed Fetterman leading Oz, 46/37, broadly in line with today’s results. There too Oz was fantastically unpopular, rating 28/50 in favorability compared to Fetterman’s 45/27. Maybe Oz’s numbers will improve as lingering hard feelings from Dave McCormick and Kathy Barnette voters soften over time, bringing some Republicans back into the fold following a tough primary.
But I wouldn’t bet heavily on it:
Touting party unity, Mehmet Oz said in two Fox appearances that "all" of his former primary rivals have endorsed him…which prompted third-place Kathy Barnette, who got more than 330,000 votes, to say this:
https://t.co/AdIykBy5Hy pic.twitter.com/RBqO3B09zi— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 22, 2022
The worse inflation and fuel prices get, the better Oz’s chances get. He absolutely could win this election despite rocking a 30/63 favorable rating thanks to the national Biden malaise. But if Fetterman recovers physically and convinces voters that he’s fit for service, there’s a nonzero chance that he wins this race comfortably, a near-impossibility approaching a feat of magic in a year like this.
And that’s not the only ominous data in the AARP poll.
I’ve made my feelings clear about Doug Mastriano in earlier posts. He’s a menace to American democracy whose victory in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race would raise the odds considerably of a constitutional crisis in 2024, particularly if Trump is the Republican nominee. He’s so fringy that his Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, ran an ad during the Republican primary highlighting Mastriano’s Trumpiness, knowing that would endear him to Republican primary voters. Shapiro wanted to face Mastriano in the general election because he believed he was the easiest Republican candidate to beat — which may be true.
But he forgot that no Republican will be easy to beat in 2022.
Two polls have now confirmed that Mastriano is very much in this race and capable of winning. Suffolk had him down four points to Shapiro, 44/40. Today’s AARP poll has it tighter than that, 49/46. Again, a generic Republican would probably be winning outright: Mastriano’s favorable rating is 37/44 while Shapiro’s is 47/34. But Biden’s catastrophic decline among independents is a heavy weight on Shapiro’s shoulders. Behold:
Mastriano is 18 points ahead of Shapiro among independents. Eighteen farking points. He also polls better on favorability among indies than Shapiro does, breaking even at 38/38 while Shapiro scores 32/41. It may be that Mastriano’s numbers will decline once Shapiro’s team really goes to work on him and begins educating voters about what he believes and what sort of civic threat he represents. But Mastriano has been shrewd about not aiding that education campaign: He’s avoiding national media requests and sticking to social media streaming so far, which deprives journalists of chances to confront him about his insurrectionist crankery and to highlight it in their reports. He may end up running a version of Biden’s basement campaign, believing that in a year when voters nationwide are open to electing any Republican on the ballot, all he has to do is lie low, keep them in the dark, and let political gravity work for him.
It could work. If the election were held today, I might even rate him as the favorite. God help us.
As for Oz, it’s a cinch that the little-known and therefore more generic Republican McCormick would have been more competitive with Fetterman. I’ll leave you with this bit of trivia from Josh Kraushaar. Kathy Barnette may have ended up inadvertently handing this seat to Democrats after all.
One Republican involved in the Senate primary found the same dynamic from their internals — lots of “no Oz” voters that “liked” McCormick but weren’t 100% sold. Barnette won a lot of these voters.
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) June 22, 2022
How is this a reliable poll?
AARP commissioned the bipartisan polling team of Fabrizio Ward & Impact Research to conduct a survey. The firms interviewed 1382 likely Pennsylvania voters, which includes a statewide representative sample of 500 likely voters, with an oversample of 550 likely voters age 50 and older and an additional oversample of 328 Black likely voters age 50 and older, between June 12-19. The interviews were conducted via landline, cellphone, and SMS-to-web. The margin of sampling error for the 500 statewide sample is ±4.4%; for the 855 total sample of voters 50+ is ±3.3%; for the 433 total sample of Black voters 50+ is ±4.7%.
It is June. The Democrat/communists have no platform except issues they are wrong on.
The Democrat/communists think they can con Pennsylvania into voting for a communist like shrek fetterperson.
To believe this you must believe that when the angel of political death flies across America on Election Night he will look down and see that Pennsylvania has a donkey picture on its door frame and pass over to other states.
You have to believe that shrek fetterperson who is on the wrong side of every issue will convince Pennsylvania that like Hugo Chavez HE is really for the people.
You have to believe that as bad as things look for the rodents now, things will somehow look rosey for them in November
And believe that even though Joey who is the face of the rodent party is now underwater 23 points in Pennsylvania and 24 points nationally voters will say “Yeah baby give us more $7.00 gas and 10% inflation as long as we don’t have Oz as our senator.”
REALLY?
Donald Trump’s bad endorsements are going to cost us the Senate. Oz and Herschel Walker are exhibits 1 and 2.
And McConnell and Cornyn will still be in “leadership.” Does it really make a difference if they have a D or R behind their name if you still get D policies? Just skip the Senate vote on the ballot. There is no reason to give the Senate to the Republicans.
And McConnell and Cornyn will still be in “leadership.” Does it really make a difference if they have a D or R behind their name if you still get D policies? Just skip the Senate vote on the ballot. There is no reason to give the Senate to the Republicans.
I very much dislike the thought of McConnell and Cornyn continuing in leadership positions after the mid-terms and wish the members would throw them out of their lofty positions and include McCarthy in that bath-water they are throwing out!
However, there will always be a reason to put ANY Republican in the Senate, yes even Oz, Walker, Mitch, Collins, etc and that is the Supreme Court. We can not risk allowing a Democrat President and a Democrat-run Senate to put liberal judges on the bench. The one good thing McConnell has done is in keeping Merrick Garland and every day we see how stopping Secretary Garland off the Court was a brilliant piece of political leadership!
Two Dems running against each other.
You forget that McConnell voted to confirm Garland as AG. No reason to give him more opportunities to sell us out.
Ping.
AARP polls are not accurate. Their universe of those being polled is skewed. IMHO
I voted for Barnette and can’t stand Oz. However, I will consider my vote for Oz in November as a vote against Fetterman, not an endorsement of Oz. Fetterman is a dangerous Marxist and not fit to hold a seat in the senate. Keeping him far from the senate should be our top priority.
Thanks for the mention.
I wasn’t aware of those dynamics.
As for his ego, I think it’s more like Rush’s than people think. You don’t lead
from weakness. You project strength. I think they were/are both decent on
The inside.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
Oz will receive the same level of enthusiastic support from the GOP-E as they offered to Scott Wagner in his 2018 campaign for Governor.
Well he certainly raises questions for me....is he doing this because he wants to help Americans or is it just another step in hisl upward climb. I just don’t get any sincereity in him when he speaks - rather a lot of self-interest.
+1 and Roger that!
That’s how I’m looking at it currently - not really for Oz but Fetterman would be a nightmare.
PLEASE NOT OZ!
OK Groomer.
Trump apparently thinks Pennsylvania is another New York or New Jersey and that Pennsylvanians will vote like them and elect some east coast t.v. celebrity.
Rural and western Pennsylvanians and the folks who live in the “T” do not want Oz. They are not impressed with Trump’s endorsement. McCormick at least is a generic Republican and was born and had businesses in western PA. He would have been a safer choice against Fetterman and could have beaten him. I didn’t vote for him in the primary but he would at least have been a viable opponent against Fetterman. Oz is anything but.
Trump should just butt out. I’m thoroughly sick of him. He’s guaranteed that Pennsylvania will be represented by an avowed socialist/Marxist Democrat. Thanks a lot, Trump.
Don't forget Hannity lying about Barnette on his show and refusing to let her come on for an interview to clear the air.
Trump has made some horrible endorsements and he only seems to care about his win/loss record and not the type of candidates he is backing.
By backing Dr Azz, the gun grabbing, child genital mutilation candidate, he lost my support in the primary. I will look for an alternative and hope DeSantis runs.
Senator Pothead will blow a smoke ring of thanks for your support.
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