New poll shows McCormick, Barletta narrowly leading Pennsylvania Republican primary races
(WHTM) – A new WHTM/Emerson College Polling/The Hill Pennsylvania primary poll of likely Republican voters shows candidates in the race for Governor and Senate remain close with just over a month to go until the May 17 primary.
Last week, the WHTM/Emerson College Polling/The Hill Pennsylvania poll found nearly half of Republican voters are undecided in the races for US Senate and Governor. Emerson College Polling conducted a second poll of 1,000 very likely Republican Pennsylvania voters.
Candidates who receive at least 5% in either poll can qualify for a debate hosted by Nexstar Media Inc. and our media partners, WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh.
Republican Senate Primary
In the Republican primary election for US Senate, David McCormick holds 17.8% of support, followed by Mehmet Oz with 16.6%.
Kathy Barnette is in third with 10.2%, Jeff Bartos at 8.9%, Carla Sands with 7.7%, George Bochetto with 3.8%, and Sean Gale with 2.5%.
The 33% who said they were undecided were then asked to choose who they are leaning toward at this time.
When undecided voters are allocated to who they lean towards, David McCormick increases his lead to 27.2%, followed by Mehmet Oz with 20.6%, Jeff Bartos with 17.1%, Kathy Barnette with 14.8%, Carla Sands with 11.4%, George Bochetto with 4.6%, and Sean Gale with 4.3%.
Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling noted, “McCormick has a strong base of support across most demographics, whereas Oz seems to lack a clear base. More undecided voters move towards Bartos and Barnette than to Oz.”
Kimball continued, “Republican women voters are more supportive of Bartos (20%) and Barnette (17%) than their male counterparts, while Republican male voters are most supportive of McCormick with 30%.”
Republican Gubernatorial Primary
In the race for the Republican nomination to fill the open Governor’s seat, Lou Barletta leads with 19.8%, followed by Doug Mastriano with 19.4%.
David White finished third with 11.6%, followed by Bill McSwain with 7.9%, Jake Corman with 4%, Melissa Hart and Charlie Gerow with 3.1%, Joseph Gale with 2.9%, and Nche Zama with 1.7%.
Twenty-seven percent of voters said they were undecided in the gubernatorial race and were asked who they were leaning toward at this time.
With these voters allocated, Lou Barletta increases his lead to hold 26.2% support, followed by Doug Mastriano with 22.4%, David White with 14.2%, Bill McSwain with 11.9%, Jake Corman with 7.6%, Melissa Hart with 6.9%, Joseph Gale with 4.1%, Charles Gerow with 3.6% and Nche Zama with 3.1%.
“Barletta holds the plurality of support among suburban (28%) and urban (24%) voters, while
Mastriano leads Barletta among rural voters 30% to 25%.” Kimball continued. “Barletta also
leads all age groups except those aged 50-64, where Mastriano holds 29% of this age blocks’
support.”
Methodology
The Emerson College/The Hill Pennsylvania Republican primary poll was conducted April 3-4, 2022. The Republican primary sample consisted of very likely voters, n=1,000, with a Credibility Interval (CI) similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE) of +/- 3 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by age and education based on 2020 turnout modeling. It is important to remember that subsets based on gender, age, ethnicity, and region carry with them higher margins of error, as the sample size is reduced. Data was collected using a cellphone sample of SMS-to-web, an online panel provided by Amazon MTurk, and an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines.
