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August 15, 2006
Pennsylvania Senate Race
RealClearPolitics Election Analysis
The latest Quinnipiac poll confirms the Morning Call poll from a couple of weeks ago that this race has indeed tightened considerably. We never took seriously Quinnipiac's supposed 18pt lead for Casey back in June, so we don't think Santorum has suddenly picked up 12 pts, but there is no question that he has closed the gap. Santorum, of course, still has a host of problems working against his bid for a third term, but Casey's campaign should be very concerned to what is happening to their vaunted lead. One of the major considerations in our ranking this race as Lean Democrat and why we think Casey still is likely to win, is simply the size of the deficit Santorum has to make up. We have said from the outset that we expect Santorum to close hard, and thought he would pull up just short in the end, primarily because he simply had too deep a hole to climb out of. But if more polls continue to confirm this a 5-8 point race rather than a 11-14 point race before Labor Day, this race becomes a complete toss up. And with a Green Party candidate very much a real possibility to siphon critical percent's of votes away from Casey, suddenly Santorum may be very much back in the game
