Dem Dominates in CD17

West Long Branch, NJ – Conor Lamb maintains his double-digit advantage over Keith Rothfus in the race for Pennsylvania’s newly drawn 17^th Congressional District, according to the latest Monmouth University Poll.  The nation’s only House contest that pits two incumbents against each other is being dominated by the Democrat. Lamb has only served in Congress since winning a special election in March, but he is better known and better liked than his three-term Republican opponent.  Voter disapproval of President Donald Trump and concerns about health care costs are key factors driving this race.

Lamb currently holds a 54% to 42% lead over Rothfus among likely voters using Monmouth’s standard midterm turnout model. The race stands at 55% for Lamb and 41% for Rothfus using a model that incorporates a turnout surge in Democratic precincts. A model projecting lower overall turnout shows Lamb with a 54% to 42% edge over Rothfus. These results are basically unchanged from Monmouth’s July poll. At that time, Lamb was ahead by similar margins in the standard model (53%-40%), the Democratic surge model (54%-39%), and the low turnout model (54%-40%). All leads in the current likely voter models are outside the margin of error for the poll.

“It really doesn’t matter which likely voter model we use. This newly drawn district has a lot of active Democrats as well as voters with a past history of voting Democratic. Lamb simply dominates across the entire district,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.  Most of the interviews for the poll were completed prior to Monday’s televised debate between the two candidates.

A recent ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court carved the new PA-17 from parts of House districts 3, 12, 14, and 18 – and Lamb holds a substantial lead in every part. Just over half the electorate is currently represented by Rothfus in the current 12^th District, but these voters prefer Lamb by a 53% to 43% margin. The Democrat’s edge here was a much narrower 49% to 46% in July. About 1-in-5 voters are represented by Lamb in the current 18^th District and they are sticking with him by a 55% to 41% margin, which is similar to the 59% to 36% lead he had over the summer. The remainder of the new district is made up largely of Democratic-leaning Pittsburgh suburbs in PA-14 along with a small sliver of heavily Republican PA-03 in Butler County. Taken together, these voters give Lamb a sizable lead of 56% to 39% over Rothfus, although this is somewhat narrower than the 59% to 28% lead he had in July.

The poll finds that the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is not having much of an impact on this race. Nearly 8-in-10 (79%) likely PA-17 voters say this has not caused them to change their vote for the House. Among the remainder, 10% say the Kavanaugh issue has made them more likely to support Rothfus, 8% say it has made them more likely to support Lamb, and 2% say it has made them more undecided.

Lamb is getting a big assist from district voters’ negative views of the president – 41% approve of the job Trump is doing while 58% disapprove.  This marks a decline from the already negative 45% approve to 52% disapprove rating the president received in July. Trump won what is now the 17^th District’s electorate by just over 2 points in 2016. Mitt Romney won it by 5 points in 2012.

Currently, 73% of likely voters say that the president is a very important factor in their House vote, but this motivation is more prevalent among Trump opponents (83%) than it is among Trump supporters (66%).  In July, a similar 72% said Trump was a very important factor, with a similar gap between opponents (81%) and supporters (66%) who felt this way.

Last month, Trump tweeted his endorsement of Rothfus, but only 33% of PA-17 voters have heard about the president’s support. Regardless of whether they are already aware of the Trump endorsement, just 11% of voters say it makes them more likely to support Rothfus while a larger 28% say it makes them less likely to support Rothfus. Another 61% say Trump’s tweet has no impact on their vote choice.

“It’s probably good news for Rothfus that few voters are aware of Trump’s endorsement because it really doesn’t help him. I doubt we will see a repeat of last spring’s presidential rally in southwestern Pennsylvania,” said Murray.

PA-17 voters have softened a bit on the president’s trade and tariff policies, but are still more negative than positive about them. More say these policies hurt (42%) rather than help (37%) the economy in this part of Pennsylvania, with another 10% saying they have no impact.  When these policies were only recently implemented in July, 49% of voters expected they would hurt the local economy, 33% said they would help, and 10% said they would have no impact.

When asked to choose their top issue in the House race from a list of six included in the poll, health care (36%) emerges as the clear top pick, followed by immigration (15%), job creation (15%), gun control (11%), tax policy (9%), and abortion (9%).  When asked who they trust more to keep health care affordable, 45% choose Lamb and 26% choose Rothfus, with 19% saying they trust both candidates equally.

A majority (52%) of PA-17 likely voters have a favorable view of Lamb and just 20% have an unfavorable view of him, with 27% expressing no opinion. This is similar to his 49%-20% rating in July.  Voters are split on Rothfus, giving him a 37% favorable and 32% unfavorable rating, with another 31% having no opinion.  This is similar to his 35%-28% rating in Monmouth’s prior poll.  When asked which candidate shares more of their values, 46% choose Lamb and 32% choose Rothfus, with 14% of voters saying both candidates equally share their values.

The poll finds that Lamb’s party affiliation is an advantage in this race. PA-17 voters are more likely to prefer having Democrats (48%) rather than Republicans (35%) in control of Congress. This gap has expanded from voters’ 44% to 40% Democratic preference in July.

Nearly 8-in-10 (79%) likely voters say they have a lot of interest in the upcoming House election, which is up from 68% who said the same in July. Democrats (84%) are more likely than Republicans (71%) to have a lot of interest in this race, which is similar to the enthusiasm gap Monmouth found in July (77% Democrats to 65% Republicans). Interest among independent voters has climbed from 59% in the summer to 79% in the current poll.

“Republicans have been closing the enthusiasm gap in national polls as well as other individual House races that Monmouth has been tracking. Pennsylvania’s 17^th seems to be bucking that trend. A focus on fundamental kitchen table issues continues to boost Lamb’s prospects” said Murray.

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from October 5 to 8, 2018 with 354 likely voters in Pennsylvania’s 17^th Congressional District. The question results in this release have a margin of error of +/- 5.2 percentage points. The error of the difference between the two candidates’ vote share (i.e. the “lead”) is +/-7.3 percentage points.  The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.

QUESTIONS AND RESULTS                                                                        

(* Some columns may not add to 100% due to rounding.)

[QUESTIONS 3 & 4 WERE ROTATED]

METHODOLOGY

The Monmouth University Poll was sponsored and conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute from October 5 to 8, 2018 with a random sample of 354 likely voters in Pennsylvania’s 17^th Congressional District, drawn from a list of registered voters who voted in at least one of the last four general or primary elections or have registered to vote since January 2016. This includes 168 contacted by a live interviewer on a landline telephone and 186 contacted by a live interviewer on a cell phone in English. Monmouth is responsible for all aspects of the survey design, data weighting and analysis. Final sample is weighted for region, party registration, age, gender, education and race based on state voter registration list and U.S. Census information. Data collection support provided by Braun Research (field) and L2 (voter sample). For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling has a maximum margin of plus or minus 5.2 percentage points (unadjusted for sample design). Sampling error can be larger for sub-groups (see table below). In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

DEMOGRAPHICS (weighted)

Party Registration

38%  Republican

54%  Democrat

7%  Neither

Self-Reported Party ID

33%  Republican

22%  Independent

46%  Democrat

46%  Male

54%  Female

11%  18-34

22%  35-49

32%  50-64

34%  65+

94%  White, non-Hispanic

6%  Other

63%  No college degree

37%  4-year college degree

74%  Allegheny County

23%  Beaver County

3%  Butler County

Current House district

57%  12 – Rothfus

20%  18 – Lamb

21%  14

3%  03

Click on pdf file link below for full methodology and results by key demographic groups.