Q-poll: 43% to re-elect Casey

U.S. Sen. Robert Casey got a positive job approval rating by state voters, who also favor him over an undetermined Republican candidate in the 2012 election, a poll released Thursday morning shows.

Mr. Casey, a Democrat, got a 39-29 percent job approval rating by voters and a 43-35 percent nod by voters saying he deserves another term in office, the latest Quinnipiac University poll shows.

Those polled overwhelming approve -- 69-24 percent -- of the tax deal President Barack Obama negotiated with Republican leaders. Voters, however, were split at 45-45 percent on whether Congress should repeal the health care overhaul. Most of the poll, though, was completed before a federal judge in Virginia ruled that part of the law was unconstitutional.

The president has a slight approval rating, 44-43 percent, in the state. He would defeat an undetermined Republican in 2012 by 41-37 percent, voters said, who are split on whether the president deserves a second term.

From Dec. 6 through Monday, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,584 Pennsylvania voters, with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.

More from the poll: 24 percent think Casey is too liberal, 7 percent say too conservative and 43 percent think his views are about right. The state is split down the middle, 45-45, on whether to repeal the health care bill. And by a 56-38 margin, Pennsylvanians want us out of Afghanistan -- a shift from July when respondents said by a 48-45 margin that the U.S. was doing the right thing by being there.