Keystone Kismet: How One Single Poll Ignored The Reality of the Pennsylvania Senate Race

Conor Lamb will become the Pennsylvania Democratic Party's nominee for Senate at some point this evening or early next morning.

This is not unbridled optimism speaking. This is not unrequited hope. This is not an unfulfilled desire to have my guy capture the nomination. No, this bold, daring proclamation is based on everything I've come to know about politics in the past decade.

Because this race is unlike any other I've seen or experienced. Never before have I seen such a concerted effort by our media to tip the scale for a statewide election. Sure, we all saw the attempt to anoint Bernie Sanders in 2020 but this feels different. In 2020, we saw the media overhype Sanders due to a couple of unremarkable primary victories in a crowded primary field. But here in 2022 what we're seeing is the media completely go all in on a candidate based on a single poll. That one poll has absolutely driven the media narrative over the campaign's final two weeks, so much so that is has suddenly become the one determining factor in the race's outcome. The poll, conducted by Franklin & Marshall University which has received a B/C rating for accuracy, was conducted from April 20 - May 1 with a total of 792 registered Pennsylvania voters, 357 of them being Democrats. The key takeaway on the Democratic side was that Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman had a significant 53-14 lead over his challenger and chief rival, Congressman Conor Lamb. Seeing as how this was the only significant polling done in the PA Senate race, the result suddenly became gospel for any and all media looking to analyze the race. From the Tripp Gabriel of The New York Times: 

Representative Conor Lamb was supposed to be a Democratic rising star — a Marine veteran, former prosecutor and Pennsylvania moderate who had won in Trump territory and swing suburbs alike. Scores of Democratic officials endorsed him in his run for Senate, eager to pick up a Republican-held open seat and have him roll into Washington next year to bridge the partisan chasm.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way.

Mr. Lamb now heads into the state’s Democratic primary on Tuesday on a much less competitive footing than he or his supporters had hoped. He trails by double digits in polling behind John Fetterman, the shorts-wearing lieutenant governor whose outsider image has resonated with the Democratic base.

Two distinct forces appear to have worked against Mr. Lamb: his campaign’s strategic missteps and his misfortune to be running at a time when Democrats, much like Republicans, are rejecting their party’s centrists.

From Colby Itkowitz of The Washington Post: 

The political dynamics for both men couldn’t be more different four years later, with Lamb struggling badly in the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s open U.S. Senate seat. Days before voters go to the polls, no national headliners are coming to campaign for the congressman. Those missing include Biden, now an unpopular president who is neutral in the intraparty contest.

Lamb is trailing John Fetterman by as many as 39 points in some public opinion polls. Fetterman is a tattooed, 6-foot-9 liberal with a shaved head who has emerged as a folk hero for many Pennsylvania Democrats. Lamb was the model Democrat in 2018, a congenial, manicured candidate straight from Hollywood central casting who could appeal to voters turned off by Trump while still wary of the party that opposed the 45th president.

But these days, Democrats here say they want more than something to vote against; they want something to vote for. And many say they have found that in Fetterman. 

And from Christian Paz at Vox: 

Who will win Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday, May 17, isn’t much of a mystery. John Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, has been leading in polls for months in one of Democrats’ most important races for keeping control of the Senate.

Fetterman has been recovering after having a stroke on Friday — one he says was minor and left him with no lasting damage. But even time off the campaign trail seems unlikely to dim his prospects. Recent polls show him ahead of his closest challenger, Rep. Conor Lamb — the sort of moderate Democrats typically put forward in Pennsylvania Senate races — by 30 points.

His dominance may seem surprising. But behind it is his success in addressing two pressing problems Democrats have struggled with nationally. That their primary voters tend to favor progressive policies more than general election voters, and their party seems unable to clearly define what it believes and who it’s for: It wants to advance progressive ideas without being branded as leftist, and to strike a balance between elite priorities and blue-collar concerns.

Three separate news outlets all obsessed with the Franklin & Marshall poll. Because for them, that poll told them everything they already believed to be true. That Lamb was a mundane moderate. That he was in the stiff Biden pantheon of politicians. That he was a complacent centrist. That the Democratic Party was moving hard to the left and that there was no way that a steady three-term incumbent Congressman who had won 3 times in a Trump district could translate that success into a statewide run. That John Fetterman, the sweatshirt-wearing, pro-pot Lieutenant Governor had the pulse of the people. That Fetterman's casual style and chill demeanor would inspire the Far Left to once again rise up and vote for their guy. This one, single poll gave these three outlets cover to try and actively make John Fetterman the next big thing in Democratic Party politics. This poll, this one poll, gave these outlets the story they so desperately wanted to write.

But politics doesn't always turn out exactly as planned. 

The last two months of the campaign has been an absolute disaster for someone proclaiming unbeatable front-runner status like John Fetterman. It started with him skipping the first PA Senate debate in early April to which both Conor Lamb and State Senator Malcolm Kenyatta drew attention to his conspicuous absence. Just three weeks later, Fetterman did finally show up to debate and the world saw how and why he skipped the first one as he was crushed by both Lamb and Kenyatta for his failure to address a 2013 incident where he chased and threatened an unarmed Black man with a gun. Fetterman stalled and stumbled in his response and despite having a clear avenue to do so, failed to apologize or even acknowledge his error in judgement. Lamb capitalized on the debate and in messaging clearly geared toward Pennsylvania's significant Black Democratic voting bloc, stated how Fetterman's actions and his inability to learn and grow from the incident showed him to fail to have a key trait needed of a United States Senator. For reference, this debate happened at the very end of the Franklin & Marshall polling cycle, preventing the majority of survey responders to have seen Fetterman live on stage, which for many was the first time being able to see him in a public debate setting.

While the debate was disastrous, Fetterman's campaign strategy these past two months may have been even worse. Knowing that he would face tough questions from the Black community for his 2013 actions, Fetterman chose to avoid Pittsburgh and Philadelphia completely, areas that make up 20% of the state's population. Instead, Fetterman adopted the Bernie Sanders strategy of trying to prove that he was popular in deep red counties and as we saw in both 2016 and 2020 that Sanders strategy simply does not work. Tuesday night is a Democratic primary and for Fetterman to try and siphon off votes from Republican voters instead of focusing on the Black men and women of the Democratic Party base is a huge misstep. Combined with a ground game that only canvassed during weekdays and was offering first-time canvass trainings during GOTV and it became clear that Fetterman did not feel the need to reach out to any new voters other than those in smaller Trump counties and to rely on the White working-class to make up the bulk of his supporters. Fetterman truly believed that he could become the Democratic nominee without the urban Black vote in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, a belief so in tune with Bernie Sanders that it's almost as if Fetterman thought he was the one running instead of Sanders two years ago.

Yet as bad as all that has been, Fetterman somehow topped it all with his performance this past weekend. Fetterman ended up having a stroke late Friday, and his campaign lied about his condition for 48 hours by claiming he was sick in an act eerily reminiscent of how Bernie Sanders tried to hide his own heart attack on the 2019 campaign trail. While it was a relief to see Fetterman recover, questions were raised about his long-term health and his ability to handle a grueling six-month general election campaign against what will be a well-funded and vicious general election Republican opponent. Medical experts took to Twitter to share that general recovery for the type of stroke that Fetterman experienced would likely be 3 to 6 months, putting him potentially off the campaign trail during what would be the most critical Senate elections of the entire 2022 midterms. Whether or not Election Day voters see Fetterman's health as an issue remains to be seen but for those with other concerns about Fetterman, this incident provided one more reason to doubt that he would be the best candidate to go toe-to-toe with a Trump-backed Republican candidate in the general election.

While Fetterman has been an absolute train wreck over the last two months, Connor Lamb has opted to take the exact opposite approach. Lamb has hustled throughout the state with a significant volunteer force going non-stop. His text team, composed of both in-state and out-of-state volunteers sent over 1.4 million text messages to voters. A team led by the VeepsPeeps, the supporters of Vice-President Kamala Harris, took charge by sending over 876,000 text messages among their 20 members with The Bar's own Dr. AJ setting the pace by sending 176,000(!) texts on her own. Unlike Fetterman, Lamb knew the importance of speaking to voters at the doors early on and has had a strong canvass game for months with his volunteers knocking doors seven days a week. While he has been outraised by Fetterman by a 3:1 margin, Lamb has been wise on his campaign spending, choosing to focus on ad buys and setting aside $1 million from donors who gave both to his primary and his general election campaign. Meanwhile, Fetterman has spent nearly all of his $15 million on current ad buys while completely ignoring the fact that he would need a war chest should he win the primary and move on to the general election in November.

But to truly understand the difference in the candidates is to look at who they are trying to reach. While Fetterman has been chasing the white whale that is the mythical Republican-turned-Democrat voter, Lamb has been connecting with the Black clergy in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and the labor unions in both urban and suburban districts. It's why he has significant endorsements from faith, labor, and prominent publications like The Philadelphia Inquirer. Because, believe it or not, you need groups, not simply individuals, to canvass for you and vote for you. It was the Black vote in Philadelphia that put Joe Biden over the top in 2020 and they remain engaged once again in 2022, this time banding together to support Conor Lamb. Between the 2013 shotgun incident and completely ignoring them in 2022, John Fetterman has intentionally chosen to ignore the most consistent voting bloc in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. While it might feel like this is something Fetterman can get away with, history has shown that no Democrat can win statewide without the Black vote. Fetterman is tempting the fates and is doing so because his ego won't allow him to admit he screwed up big time in 2013.

While all of these factors have been significant, perhaps the most telling sign of all has been the conversations Lamb's volunteers have been having with actual voters. With a month of work down, many of us have found Lamb not just to have support but to have significantly more support than Fetterman. While none of us believe that Lamb will win by a 2:1 or 3:1 margin we often get when voters respond to when asked which candidate they will be supporting, we can't help but notice just how little support Fetterman has from registered Democratic voters across the state. His support is soft, with many of his supporters not being overly enthused about voting for him. Meanwhile Lamb, the "boring" conventional Democrat, has a whole army of supporters behind him. From his fellow veterans to Black voters to his current constituents to those of who recognize him to be the only candidate with a realistic shot of winning in November, Lamb, like Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, has steadily amassed a diverse, broad, winning coalition. And like with both Clinton and Biden, our media simply cannot wrap their heads around how someone steady, calm, and reliable can take down a more erratic, unhinged, and politically sloppy opponent. They fail to see that Pennsylvania voters, after 4 years of Trumpian hell, want someone who isn't a loose cannon to represent them in the United States Senate. Our media once again has drank the Kool-Aid trying to make a mediocre, untalented, uninspiring White man the next big thing in Democratic politics.

It is a lesson they refuse to learn.