Tom Corbett’s Poll Numbers Stay Really Low

Only 23 percent think he's done a good enough job to merit re-election.

Huffington Post reports that Tom Corbett’s numbers in a new Franklin & Marshall College poll are, well, really bad: “The survey found that only 23 percent of Pennsylvania voters believe Corbett has done a good enough job to deserve reelection, while 63 percent believe it’s time for a change. Even among his own party, just 42 percent said he should be reelected.

Ouch.

 In the past two decades, the only candidate to score worse than Corbett in Franklin & Marshall’s Pennsylvania polling was then-Sen. Arlen Specter. In October 2009, shortly after Specter switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party, just 23 percent of Pennsylvania voters said he deserved reelection, while 66 percent said it was time for a change. He went on to lose his party’s primary to then-Rep. Joe Sestak the next year.

The good news? Corbett’s numbers have improved since last fall.

Things barely look better when you stick to the Republican base. Human Events, a conservative magazine, this week released poll numbers also showing Corbett’s support is soft: “In the poll of 956 registered Republican voters, 41 percent said they would prefer a new GOP candidate for governor and 38 percent said they prefer Gov. Thomas W. Corbett, said Doug Kaplan, the president of Gravis Marketing, a Florida-based polling company. The poll has a 3 percent margin of error.”

On the other hand, the only candidate mentioned as a primary opponent—conservative businessman Robert R. Guzzardi—loses a hypothetical matchup to Corbett in the Human Events poll. So the  wishing for a new candidate may not be that powerful a force within the Pennsylvania Republican party.