ALLENTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania is less than one month away from Election Day, and in the race for Pennsylvania governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro holds a sizable lead over Republican State Sen. Doug Mastriano.
Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight both have Shapiro up by an average of 11 points on Mastriano.
“The polling over the last few weeks has been pretty consistent in Pennsylvania, showing the current attorney general, Democrat Josh Shapiro, with a double-digit lead over State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee,” said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College, and the director of the college’s Institute of Public Opinion.
Borick says polling and fundraising rely on each other, and Mastriano’s poor polling numbers make it hard if not impossible to raise the money he needs to be competitive.
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“Senator Mastriano doesn't have a lot of money. And his campaign hasn't been able to put a lot of ads up. Attorney General Shapiro's been in an opposite space, flush with cash and able to really dominate the airwaves with messaging about Mastriano.”
Last month, at Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and Public Service, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, was asked about the Pennsylvania race.
He said, while they’re keeping an eye on the race, “We don’t fund lost causes and we don’t fund landslides.”
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Mastriano is running TV ads in western and central Pennsylvania, but not in the much more expensive Philadelphia market, which reaches about 40% of voters. He also declines most interview requests, and he refused to debate his opponent unless he could hand pick the moderator.
Mastriano says Southeast Pennsylvania media outlets are allies of Democratic candidates, which puts Republican candidates at an unfair disadvantage. Shapiro called his opponent’s conditions an "unserious proposal" and a "stunt to avoid answering real questions about Mastriano's extreme agenda."
Borick says the “media is out to get me” angle may play well to Mastriano’s base, but “it just doesn't allow him to get to the voters that I think he's going to ultimately need to be the next governor of Pennsylvania.”
Borick says the winds are at Republicans’ backs in this cycle: There’s a not-so-popular Democrat in the White House, inflation is spiking and, historically speaking, Democrats have never won the Pennsylvania governor’s office three terms in a row, and neither party has been able to hold it for three straight terms dating back to the 1950s.
“I think, if Republicans don't win in this cycle, if they don't win the governor's office, and they don't appraise that that had something to do with their choices of who they put up, something's been missed,” Borick said.
Election Day is Nov. 8.