By Nick Field, Managing Editor

– Democratic nominee Tom Wolf has gotten quite the post-primary bounce.

In the first poll released after the former Department of Revenue Secretary won the Democratic primary, Tom Wolf holds a twenty point lead over the Governor.

According to Rasmussen Reports, 51% of likely voters would support Wolf while 31% would vote for Governor Tom Corbett. Only 14% of respondents were undecided.

As expected, Wolf is supported by 83% of Democrats yet only 59% of Republicans favor Corbett. Wolf pulls away 25% of PA Republicans and holds a ten point lead among independents.

Meanwhile, among those surveyed Governor Corbett’s job approval is 36% with 59% of voters disapproving of his performance.

On the issues, Wolf leads across the board. On the question as to whom the voters trust more on handling social issues the Democrat has a 51-27 advantage. 46% trust Wolf more when it comes to his handling of government and corruption while 26% trust Corbett.

The Democrat even holds the lead on questions like taxes and government spending. Voters trust Wolf by a 47-30 margin on the former and by a 46-30 margin on the latter.

Suffice it to say this is not good news for the incumbent. Additionally, Rasmussen is generally considered a Republican-leaning, though thoroughly credible, polling organization.

The silver linings for Gov. Corbett are that Wolf is just coming off an impressive win in the Democratic primary which usually juices a candidate’s numbers. There is also the high probability that PA Republicans will come back home and get behind Corbett eventually. Finally, this is just the beginning of the general election race, so the Governor has all of summer and the fall to close the gap.

The survey of 750 Likely Voters in Pennsylvania was conducted on May 27-28, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Source: http://www.politicspa.com/pa-gov-rasmussen-poll-wolf-51-corbett-31/58432/