Rasmussen released a poll yesterday gauging a head-to-head match-up between Republican incumbent Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and Democrat Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball. The survey of 500 registered voters in the state shows Specter leading by a slim 46 percent to 43 percent margin. The internals of the poll, however, reveal some even more fascinating results. A survey like this deserves tons of caveats–the election is two years away, a campaign has not begun, fairly small sample (500), to name a few. In some ways it’s more snapshot of generic partisan attitudes in Pennsylvania than anything else. For example, the poll shows Matthews actually leading 68 percent-28 percent among voters age 18-29 and 46 percent to 40 percent among those age 30-39, numbers that look a lot like those from the Obama/McCain race. As a preview, however, of how odd this race could be given Specter’s uneasy relationship with conservatives, Matthews actually leads within this group 51 percent to 43 percent. But Specter is ahead among self-identified liberals, 53 percent to 25 percent. Kind of like Matthew’s Hardball show, one needs to enjoy these results more for their entertainment value than anything else. Read more about the poll here.
