By Nick Field

– Tom Wolf is holding on to his solid lead over Governor Tom Corbett.

The new Franklin & Marshall poll released this week shows Democratic nominee Tom Wolf with a 54% to 34% advantage among likely voters. The margin is 49% to 31% among registered voters.

Rather ironically, last month the Corbett campaign criticized Terry Madonna for sampling registered rather than likely voters, yet their candidate performs worse under a likely voter model.

The F&M survey also asked unsure registered and self-described likely voters if they lean towards any one candidate. Among registered voters and leaners, Wolf retains a 54% to 33% lead. Concerning likely voters plus leaners, the margin grows to 57% to 37% in the Democrat’s favor.

When broken down by demographics (among registered voters), Wolf leads in all regions and among all age, education, income, religious, racial and gender groups.

The silver lining for Gov. Corbett is that Republicans are finally returning to the fold. Last month, just 48% of them said they’d vote for Corbett, a total that has now increased to 62%.

Only 28% of registered voters, though, feel that Tom Corbett is doing a “good” or “excellent” as Governor. Additionally, just 30% believe he deserves to be re-elected. Once again, these ratings are improvements from last month but mostly because Republicans are rating him higher.

60% of respondents feel the state is on the wrong track and a record 30% of people believe education is the state’s most important problem.

This poll surveyed 520 registered Pennsylvania voters from September 15th to 22nd. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.3%.

Update: Continuing their feud with Terry Madonna and the F&M poll, the Corbett campaign released the following statement:

“Even G. Terry Madonna’s flawed polling methods that give Democrats a 12 point registration edge, which has never happened in a statewide Pennsylvania election, show Governor Tom Corbett closing the gap,” Corbett-Cawley Communications Director Chris Pack said. “Much like in Monday’s debate, we are confident that as we continue exposing Wolf’s big spending agenda that includes a middle class income tax increase that Wolf refuses to explain and an ongoing denial of our state’s pension crisis, that voters will re-elect Governor Tom Corbett in November.”

Source: http://www.politicspa.com/pa-gov-fm-poll-wolf-54-corbett-34/60643/

Philly Labor Editorial – Although recent polls show Tom Wolf with a substantial lead over Gov Corbett, there is no time to lay back and take anything for granted as we head down the home stretch of the upcoming Nov. 4 General Election. In fact, the one scenario that still gives Gov Tom Corbett a chance to win is if there is low voter turnout at the polls as predicted.

As an organized labor community, we can not let that happen. We must stay engaged throughout the final month of the campaign and show up at the polls on election day and vote like our union livelihoods depend on it because, with all of the anti-worker actions of the current Corbett administration in Harrisburg, THEY DO!