The new poll of Pennsylvania from the GOP outfit Public Opinion Strategies, which shows former Gov. Tom Ridge swamping Pat Toomey in a Republican primary for Senate, also says that party-switcher Arlen Specter would start out with a huge lead in the Democratic primary against a potential challenge from Rep. Joe Sestak.
The numbers: Specter 57%, Sestak 20%.
Intuitively, this makes sense. Specter has much more name recognition than Sestak, having served as a Senator for nearly 30 years, compared to Sestak’s only having been elected in 2006. And Specter’s high-profile defection from the Republican Party has probably done him a lot of good with the state’s Dem voters.
