Poll: Fetterman leads Oz in Senate race; Shapiro and Mastriano locked in gubernatorial battle

Polling released Tuesday shows Democrat John Fetterman with an early advantage over Republican Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania’s high-profile U.S. Senate race, while Democrat Josh Shapiro and Republican Doug Mastriano are locked in a tight race for governor.

The Suffolk University/USA Today poll is the first major polling on the general election races since Pennsylvania’s May 17 primary. The poll, conducted June 10-13, surveyed 500 residents who said they were extremely or very likely to vote in November and had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

The poll showed Fetterman leading Oz by 8.6 percentage points, but Shapiro’s lead of 3.8 percentage points was within the margin of error.

“Even with Democratic Party registration dwindling in Pennsylvania, both Fetterman and Shapiro are adopting a more populist approach to midterm voters and winning independents,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.

“Voters say they are unhappy with the economy in Pennsylvania and President Biden’s job approval, yet these particular Democrats are threading the needle thus far,” he added.

Braddock’s Fetterman, who serves as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, received 46% support in the Senate poll compared to 37.4% for Oz, a celebrity surgeon and former TV personality who lives in Montgomery County. Candidates for the Green, Libertarian and Constitution parties, as well as other independents, all received less than 2% support. About 13% of those polled said they remained undecided.

The pivotal race will determine who replaces U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley. Currently, the Senate is made up of 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats. Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, serves as president of the Senate.

Montgomery County’s Shapiro, the state’s attorney general, received 44% support from those polled in the race for governor, while Mastriano, a state senator from Adams County, received 40.2% support. All other third-party and independent candidates received less than 2%. About 12% of those polled were undecided.

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, is term-limited and cannot seek reelection.

The poll showed that Fetterman and Shapiro both had favorability ratings of 45%, higher than Biden’s 42.8%. On the Republican side, Mastriano had a favorability rating of 35.6% while Oz’s favorability was 27.8%.

Scores of attack ads against Oz flooded Pennsylvania airwaves for months during the primary campaign. Oz was attacked for his previous support of gun reform laws and past comments on abortion, and he was accused of having ties to Hollywood. Even before Oz narrowly won the primary, his favorability ratings were low among Republicans in the state. He was even booed by some at a rally with former President Trump in May in Westmoreland County.

Shapiro and liberal Super PACs aired some ads criticizing Mastriano for his ties to the Jan. 6 insurrection, but those ads don’t appear to have had the same effect as the attacks against Oz. According to the poll, 11.4% of those polled said they had never heard of Mastriano — the highest percentage among politicians listed in the survey.

In both the Senate and gubernatorial races, those polled identified the economy, gun control and abortion as the three most important issues in the respective races.

Voters also appeared poised to support candidates who are looking to shake things up. The Suffolk/USA Today poll said 54% of likely voters think Pennsylvania is headed on the wrong track, while 29% said the state is going in the right direction.