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The first poll conducted after the sole debate for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat shows Republican Mehmet Oz with his first lead against Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.
InsiderAdvantage surveyed 750 likely voters on 26 October, the day after the debate between the former television host and physician and Mr Fetterman. The poll has a 3.58 margin of error.
Last week, the same poll showed Mr Fetterman and Dr Oz in a deadheat match. But the new poll shows Dr Oz beats Mr Fetterman 47.5 per cent to 44.8 per cent.
The two candidates, who have engaged in a vicious war of words on the airwaves and online, squared off in their sole debate. Mr Fetterman, who suffered a stroke in May, had to use closed captioning to assist with auditory processing but often had difficulty answering questions.
Comparatively, Mr Fetterman’s campaign said he raised $2m in the day after the debate and attacked Dr Oz for his stance on abortion, cutting an ad of his remarks in the debate where he said that “Abortion should be the business of a woman, her doctor, and her local political leaders.”
The two had gone back and forth about having a debate. Respondents overwhelmingly said that Dr Oz won the debate, with 53.6 per cent saying so compared to 20.5 per cent who said that Mr Fetterman won.
The poll showed that Dr Oz has a more than 43-point lead with the 174 independent voters polled. Dr Oz also leads with 57 per cent to 36 per cent with likely male voters and has a slight advantage with white voters, with 47.7 per cent supporting him and 45.7 per cent supporting Mr Fetterman.
Conversely, 52.9 per cent of likely female voters support Mr Fetterman compared to 39 per cent who support Dr Oz.
At the same time, the poll surveyed only 49 likely African American voters, while 259 per cent of respondents were between the ages of 40 and 64, one of the most reliable Republican voting blocs. Democratic pollster Tom Bonier tweeted that the poll undersampled younger voters, since only 73 respondents were between the ages of 18 and 39 per cent.
“Almost HALF of the poll respondents are in the most heavily GOP demographic, age 40 to 64,” Mr Bonier tweeted.
Republicans hope to hold the seat that retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey will vacate at the end of the year. If they do, they need to defeat only one incumbent Democratic Senator to win the majority, given that the Senate has a 50-50 split.
For Democrats, their hope is to add one additional seat to give them cushion and make them less reliant on conservative Democrats like Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Democrats for their part appear to still be confident about their chances in Pennsylvania. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden were caught on a hot mic talking about the debate.
“Looks like the debate didn’t hurt us too much in Pennsylvania and we’re picking up steam in Nevada,” he said, referring to Nevada’s Senate race.
In addition, Democrats are not pulling out of Pennsylvania despite the flurry of ads from Republicans hitting Mr Fetterman on crime. Rob Pyers of California Target Book noted that Senate Majority PAC plans to spent more than $7m in the final two weeks of the election in Pennsylvania.
