PPP: Obama opens 8-pt lead in Pa
Barack Obama is maintaining an 8-point lead over Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania -- according to the latest Public Policy Polling study -- which is 1 point better than their last look in March, putting the incumbent in pretty good position in the state.
The Democratic-leaning pollsters also show Gov. Tom Corbett's favorable/unfavorable numbers worsening by 7 points (to 37/50) since their look in November (when they were at 37-43).
PPP's newest Pennsylvania poll finds things have changed very little in the state over the course of the last ten weeks. Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney 50-42, basically the same as his 49-42 advantage there in early March.
It doesn't look like Obama's going to have to worry too much about Pennsylvania this year, and that's a big change from what we found in our polling of the state over the course of 2011. Obama led by an average of less than a point in four PPP polls there last year. He was plagued by poor approval ratings then, but now voters are pretty evenly divided on him with 48% approving and 49% disapproving of the job he's doing. Meanwhile Romney continues to be unpopular, with just 37% of voters rating him positively to 51% with a negative opinion.
PPP surveyed 671 Pennsylvania voters from May 17th-20th and the margin of error is +/-3.8% points. Full results here.