PA-SN 2022 megathread: Shrek vs. The Wizard of Oz

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With all due respect to Sarah Longwell, there arent that many Trump-Biden voters in the first place. In case anyone forgot, Trump got more votes in Pennsylvania in 2020 than he did in 2016.

Edit: Not to dismiss them, and they may end up being an important voting block in a close race. But Trump got 400k more vote in PA in 2020 than he did in 2016, I'm skeptical that there are that many of them.

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Suddenly all of the poll movement makes sense

Hard to argue anybody watching Fox News at any hour of the day was a serious swing vote. Could have helped firm up some of that soft support Oz has gotten in recent weeks though.

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The Dog Story has been shuffling around the internet for awhile now. I'm surprised the media hasn't picked up on it until now.

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Inquirer reporter tweets about the story - seems to be where some of the disconnect is coming from - Oz was not the person doing the euthanizing, but he and his team oversaw it

https://twitter.com/JuliaTerruso/status/1577291629236453377

I dont think I was ever under the impression he was personally euthanizing the dogs, just that he oversaw it.

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I saw the interview this morning. Fetterman seemed fine, the comments from Dasha seemed unnecessary. I can't imagine it makes a difference either way.

And I'm trying to view this impartially, not the hack democrats that i usually am. 

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Also, as has been mentioned, the Kirk comparisons are overdone. He ran ahead of Trump. Some of that might have been incumbency, but Kirk made a racist statement against Tammy Duckworth at a debate for crying out loud and he was still the second best performing state wide republican in 2016(first was incumbent comptroller Leslie Munger).

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Have heard that Oz has taken the lead in some Dem internal polls. Not sure who conducted them.

That would be shocking, unless it was Data for Progress.

Had you said Republican internal, i'd wager that would be more believable. I'm fully expecting we get a Trafalgar and Insider Advantage poll with an Oz lead at some point in the next month.

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Have heard that Oz has taken the lead in some Dem internal polls. Not sure who conducted them.

This would seem pretty surprising. I would've expected at least some R internals to maybe have him up, but we haven't seen any of those. A dem internal having Oz up would certainly be a total 180 from the public polling. If you hear anything else, please let us know!

The public polling on this race sort of came to a giant halt, though Monmouth and Suffolk both Fetterman +5/6 as the last two.

The Trafalgar poll this week will likely have Oz leading. That’s kind of an internal. It’s bizarre how little public polling we’ve had in this race. Maybe pollsters like the shiny object in GA, but this has become the critical Senate race since Warnock is looking relatively comfortable now.

Yeah, I was hoping Fabrizio/Impact would return, since the last we have of them is June and they've waded it on most other competitive races by now somewhat recently.

Could use another Muhlenberg, Fox, hell even Civiqs at this point.

I have a feeling we're about to be inundated with another cycle of Emerson and Trafalgar polls. They always seem to take up the oxygen when the other pollsters are off doing something else. 

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Honestly, that interview was a really bad look for Fetterman.  People will question his mental competence.  If his reaction time is similarly delayed at the debate, it could be a campaign-ending issue for him.

Not to sound like a hack, but i watched it this morning on NBC and thought he did fine.

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Honestly, that interview was a really bad look for Fetterman.  People will question his mental competence.  If his reaction time is similarly delayed at the debate, it could be a campaign-ending issue for him.

Not to sound like a hack, but i watched it this morning on NBC and thought he did fine.

Fetterman has only had to speak for a few minutes at a time thus far. He’s either answering familiar questions about his health, for which he gives a very similar answer about becoming empathetic, or giving a brief stump speech. The debate may pose an issue because he’ll have to speak for 30 minutes total and he’ll have  to respond to more complex questions and to Oz’s attacks. Fetterman may be right that he’ll be fine in January, but voters will have current Fetterman in mind. If I were him, I’d skip the debate. A lot of downside potential, not much upside potential. Even if he does well, there’ll still be the image of him having to use accommodations.

As a side note, will Oz be closed captioned too? Oz doesn’t always annunciate well so the program might have problems with his speech.

I think the opposite which is my same argument with why Hobbs should debate Lake. A bad debate performance is likely to create less press than skipping/dropping out of a debate. Even if Fetterman is bad, the majority of voters arent going to see it. However there will be coverage of Fetterman dropping out of a debate, and it becomes a bigger issue in the closing weeks of the campaign.

I think I read Oz will be close captioned. It might be a computer although if Fetterman were smart, he'd get a professional closed captionist to type things up in real time.

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Associated Press: NBC reporter’s comment about Fetterman draws criticism

https://apnews.com/article/business-elections-pennsylvania-mehmet-oz-government-and-politics-48afac99cf9020bf8db3885dac5052dd

Not a good look.

I think the trouble was the way she framed it. She made is sound like Fetterman was having a sundowning moment.

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There’s been 7 GA polls and 5 AZ polls since the last PA poll. Feels whiny to complain, but this is the tipping point race and it feels like it should be the most heavily polled.

To be honest, I'm finding following polling to be more and more frustrating the last few years. Instead of getting flooded with data points to dissect like we did just a few years ago, we are now only getting a few polls a week, some of which are suspect and discussion devolves into "what my gut tells me". 

I know pollsters are scared after the last few cycles and polling is expensive, but this is getting sad.