Democrat Dan Onorato trails Republican Tom Corbett by just 3 percentage points in the latest Franklin & Marshall College poll on the governor's race.
Mr. Corbett, the state attorney general leads Mr. Onorato, the Allegheny County executive 33-30 percent among registered voters, with a large number of voters (37 percent) still undecided just five weeks before the election. Among those who say they are likely to vote, the Shaler Republican leads by four points (36-32 percent, 31 percent undecided) over Mr. Onorato.
The large proportion of Pennsylvania voters who have not heard enough about the gubernatorial candidates to form an opinion of them (45 percent for Corbett and 43 percent for Onorato) is unusually high for this point in the election cycle," says the poll's summary. "In Pennsylvania's last open-seat gubernatorial election in 2002, both candidates were much better known by the voters at the end of September (28 percent did not know enough about Republican Mike Fisher and 14 percent did not know enough about Democrat Ed Rendell to have an opinion).
In the U.S. Senate race, Republican Pat Toomey similarly leads Democrat Joe Sestak by 3 points among registered voters (32-29 percent, 39 percent undecided) but by a larger 9-point margin if only likely voters are considered: that breaks 38-29 percent for the Allentown Republican, with 32 percent undecided.
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