Why don’t they put it to a vote?
Pennsylvania Republicans have proposed splitting up the state’s twenty electoral votes in the presidential race from the current winner take all system to one where they would be divvied up by individual Congressional district, as they are in Maine and Nebraska. But in a new poll from Quinnipiac University, voters are not particularly keen to that idea, and skeptical of the motivations behind it.
Quinnipiac asked voters straight up about the two options, but PA Republicans didn’t get the answer they would like: only 40 percent said a switch would be a good thing, versus 52 percent who like the old way of doing things. Within that number there were some traditional fault lines. Democrats are against the idea 63 – 30, and Republicans are only slightly for it 48 – 44. Independent voters are against the change by a ten point margin.
Pennsylvania, a swing state by definition but hasn’t gone Republican in a presidential race since 1988, is again competitive this year. The poll shows that the two GOP frontrunners, former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, are running close against President Obama in presidential matchups, Romney down two to the President and Perry down six. Quinnipiac also shows that a majority of PA voters think the change will actually hurt Pennsylvania’s importance as a swing state, subsequently lessening the chance candidates will visit the state and listen to voters, with 51 percent of voters saying that would be the case and 38 percent against.
Further, voters are unconvinced that this proposal is about better representing the will of the people. A majority of voters, 57 percent, think that the idea is really about helping Republicans win the presidential election. By extension, voters in the poll are essentially rejecting the idea that the change is necessary to help the state of Pennsylvania’s political system, but instead creating a system that helps Republicans specifically. Independent voters are especially strong in this view: 61 percent think that the change is meant to help the GOP, versus 30 who think it will help better reflect the views of PA voters.
“Democrats especially are opposed, while independent voters side with them. Strangely, Republicans are not strongly in favor of the change,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in a release with the poll. “Overall, most Pennsylvanians think the proposal is being presented to give partisan advantage to Republicans. By large margins, Democrats and independent voters are not buying that ‘will of the voters’ argument.”
The Quinnipiac poll used 1,370 live telephone interviews with registered PA voters conducted from September 21st to the 26th. The poll has a sampling error of 2.7 percent.
