GOP Poll Indicates Biden Has Big Lead In PA
Republican strategist Barney Keller of Jamestown Associates, released a poll on Thursday (October 15) by Co/efficient Strategies, showing Donald Trump trailing Joe Biden in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, 48%-46%. This poll has to be among the most discouraging ones yet for Trump supporters in Pennsylvania, who have seen as many as a dozen statewide polls in the last week, all showing Biden leading Trump. None of the recent polls however, would indicate that Biden is as far ahead of Trump in Pennsylvania as this one does.
In 2016 Donald Trump won what is now the 8th Congressional Distric, beating Hilary Clinton there, 53.3%-43.7%.
If this poll is to believed (and at the very least nobody can say that it has a Democratic bias), Joe Biden is running almost 12% ahead of Clinton in this district.
Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by 48.58%-47.85%. His statewide margin of victory was .73% (a plurality of 44,292). In 2016 he won this district by approximately 30,000 votes. This poll shows Trump losing the 8th District by about 6,000 votes.
In case you’re wondering why a Republican strategist would release a polls that shows the top of the ticket losing so badly, Keller is advising Jim Bognet, the Republican candidate in the race for the 8th District Congressional Seat. The same poll that shows Trump losing CD-8 by 2%, shows Bognet trailing incumbent Democratic Congressman Matt Cartwright by 48%-43%.
Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District in red
In his press release Keller writes,
The Bottom Line: Jim Bognet is in striking distance of Matt Cartwright.
After millions of dollars spent against him and zero major investment from outside groups, this remains a margin of error race. The enthusiasm on the ground for the President in PA-8 is measurable [Perhaps so, but Keller’s pollster doesn’t seem to have measured all that much of it]. HMP has kept their TV reservations the last two weeks. Nancy Pelosi’s polling shows the same thing as ours: Cartwright can’t break 50%. If Matt Cartwright is further exposed as a wealthy, phony liberal who votes with Nancy Pelosi 99% of the time, supports higher taxes – even on social security, and wants to defund the police, then Bognet can defeat him and will become the Congressman from PA-8.
What he’s really saying
If you read between the lines, it seems as if Keller is trying to convince Republican donors that even though Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral votes appear to be out of reach for Trump, there’s still an opportunity to flip a Congressional seat in Northeast PA. So keep writing those checks.