Polls

Pennsylvania Miscellany

| Tom Jensen

-A little more than a year after gay marriage became legal in Pennsylvania, PPP finds it with a record level of support in the state. 51% of voters say they favor it, compared to only 41% who are opposed. That represents a 26 point net increase in support since just 2011 when we found only 36% of voters in support of it and 52% opposed. Among independents the numbers are 59/31 in support of gay marriage, and among voters under 45 there’s 66/29 support. The only thing making the numbers remotely close overall is continued 34/56 opposition among seniors.

Even though 41% of Pennsylvanians still say they’re opposed to gay marriage, only 22% claim its being legal has actually had a negative impact on their lives compared to 78% who say it’s either had a positive impact on their lives or none at all. That includes 63% of Republicans who grant that it’s had no ill effect on their lives.

-Kathleen Kane’s poll numbers have taken a nose dive since January. Now only 21% of voters have a favorable opinion of her compared to 38% with a negative one. Feelings about Kane were much more evenly divided when we polled the state in January and found her favorability at 31/33. Voters are still relatively indecisive about whether Kane should resign *now*- 35% say she should, 25% say she shouldn’t, and 40% don’t have an opinion either way. But if she gets indicted 65% of voters think she should resign, and already 56% say she shouldn’t run for reelection next year.

-55% of Pennsylvanians think funding levels for Amtrak should be increased to only 17% who believe they should be decreased, and 21% who think they’re fine where they are now. Even among Republican voters 44% think Amtrak funding levels should be increased, while only 22% think they should be decreased.

-Increasing the minimum wage to $12 an hour is a winning issue with Pennsylvanians. 41% say they’d be more likely to vote for their state legislator if they supported that increase, while only 28% say they’d be less likely to. 

-58% of voters support restoring cuts that have been made to education spending by taxing Marcellus Shale Gas Companies by 5.3%, to only 26% opposed to that proposal. It has strong support from independent voters at 61/25.

-Steelers fans outnumber Eagles fans in the state 38/32, pretty consistent with what we’ve found over time. Mike Tomlin’s 47/27 approval rating with Steelers fans is comparable to the 50/24 he was at in January right after the season ended.

Chip Kelly is still mostly popular with Eagles fans but his offseason moves do seem to have increased skepticism toward him at least a little bit. In January he had a 62/9 approval rating and now it’s dipped to 54/17 within the fan base. 46% of fans say they approve of the moves Kelly has made this offseason to 17% who disapprove. On the issue specifically of signing Tim Tebow, 49% of Eagles fans say they support the move to 15% who disapprove. There’s a large partisan divide in attitudes about the Tebow signing, with 77% of Republicans but only 36% of Democrats in favor of it.

-32% of Pennsylvanians identify themselves as Phillies fans to 24% for the Pirates, 8% for the Yankees, 6% for the Red Sox, 5% for the Orioles, 3% for the Cubs and Mets, and 2% for the Indians. Pirates fans are a lot happier with their current leadership though. 59% approve of the job Clint Hurdle is doing as manager to only 4% who disapprove. On the flip side, only 34% of Phillies fans approve of the job Ryne Sandberg is doing to 17% who disapprove with a 48% plurality having no opinion either way.

-Finally we found that 48% of Sixers fans think the franchise is headed in the right direction to 18% who think it’s not. Of course it’s hard to conclude too much from that because only 18% of Pennsylvanians actually identify themselves as Sixers fans, making the margin of error for that subgroup pretty high.

Full results here

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