Casey looks safe

-Bob Casey continues to look like an overwhelming favorite for reelection in the Pennsylvania Senate race. He's at 49% to 33% for Tom Smith, numbers that have changed little from March when Casey was ahead 49-31. Smith has not received much of a bounce from receiving the primary.

Pennsylvania has a Democratic registration advantage to begin with and on top of that Casey's winning 22% of the Republican vote and has a 42-24 lead with independents. Casey continues to post unimpressive approval ratings, 39/38 this time around, but that's largely because only 56% of Democrats give him good marks. Approve of him or not, 76% of Democrats still plan to vote for him.

Smith's name recognition has increased from 25% to 45% over the last couple months. But that hasn't necessarily been a good thing for him- only 16% of voters see him favorably to 29% who have a negative opinion.

-Democrats are starting out with an advantage in the race for Attorney General. Kathleen Kane leads Republican opponent David Freed 42-33. The contests for Auditor General and Treasurer produce the exact same result with the Democrat ahead 35-34 in each of them and a lot of voters still undecided.

-Pennsylvania voters still oppose gay marriage but they have moved by 7 points on the issue since PPP polled the state in November. 39% support it to 48% opposed. That 9 point margin is down from 16 points at 36/52 last fall. The most notable movement over that period of time has come with African Americans. They now narrowly support gay marriage, 42/41, after previously opposing it by a 52/34 margin.

We've seen that kind of dramatic movement with black voters in North Carolina as well. While the media has been very focused on the question of how Barack Obama's announcement on gay marriage will affect his own reelection prospects (not much) the bigger question might be how it's going to affect overall public opinion on gay marriage. The answer so far- at least with black voters- is quite a bit.

68% of Pennsylvania voters support some form of legal recognition for same sex couples, either marriage or civil unions, with only 28% opposed to any kind. Even 54% of Republicans support one or the other.

-Democrats lead the generic Congressional ballot in the state 45-42, including a 10 point lead with independents. Hard to say how that translates to actual seats but it's a better picture for the party than in 2010 to be sure.

Full results here

Comments

[Steve]

It's interesting to see the same-sex marriage thing. My hunch, however, is that while Obama may convince more blacks to support gay marriage, he may also be succeeding in dividing his most critical base.

In other words, those who remain opposed may grow disillusioned with their president. Does this sound at all plausible?