In a final act of desperation — President Obama and Vice President Biden have endorsed Katie McGinty in the three-way Democratic primary next month. While McGinty has long been the Washington Democrats’ chosen candidate, she is consistently polling behind former Congressman Joe Sestak and is struggling to raise money.
However, knowing that Joe Sestak can’t beat Pat Toomey in the November election puts national democrats between a rock and a hard place. As evidenced by this last ditch effort to prop up her campaign — the Washington elites will stop at nothing to drag McGinty over the finish line.
If there’s even a shred of doubt as to why the President and VP are throwing their weight behind McGinty…just read this story from this morning:
Blue Nerves Fray Over Pennsylvania Primary
The Morning Consult
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But in the Keystone State, the anointed favorite this year is doing something unusual: She’s losing.
State and national Democrats are backing Katie McGinty, a former state Environmental Protection secretary and chief of staff to Gov. Tom Wolf. Wolf, former Gov. Ed Rendell and the DSCC have all publicly endorsed McGinty; so has Sen. Bob Casey, who made an unusual foray into a Democratic primary earlier this month.
And yet a month ahead of the April 26 primary, a Franklin & Marshall Center for Opinion Research poll found McGinty trailing her chief rival, former Rep. Joe Sestak, by a wide 31 percent to 14 percent margin. A third candidate, Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, sits in third place with 7 percent.
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Worryingly for national Democrats who back McGinty, Sestak’s share of the vote has increased by 10 percentage points since a February Franklin & Marshall poll. McGinty’s vote-share rose just two points, even after she began running television ads on March 7.
Now, just weeks before voting begins, the Democratic calvary is riding to McGinty’s rescue. EMILY’s List, the group that backs pro-choice Democratic women, will begin running ads on April 5. The powerful union SEIU bought almost $250,000 in airtime in the Pittsburgh media market, where McGinty is virtually unknown, last week.
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“We’re disappointed now that the state party and the national party both are pushing hard for McGinty,” said Beth Alois, a Sestak backer who runs the Thornbury Township Democratic Committee in Delaware County. “Why aren’t they supporting the person who has the best chance to beat Toomey in the fall? It’s because he wouldn’t follow the party line all the time when he was in Washington.”
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