It's been a long, hot summer in Pennsylvania politics.

The four candidates vying for the governor's office and United States Senate have spent the warmer months trading jab after jab on social media and in the headlines.

But not much has changed for them, according to a new Franklin & Marshall College poll out this Thursday morning.

As was the case in a similar poll in June, both Democratic incumbent Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., continue to hold double-digit leads over their Republican challengers as the Labor Day kick-off of the fall campaign season approaches.

And because this is an election year in President Donald Trump's America, the polling data offers a deep look at the way Pennsylvanians regard America's 45th president as the midterms close in.

Don't Edit

The 2018 Race for Governor

Wolf, who's seeking a second, and final, four-year term in the top spot, holds a 52 percent to 35 percent lead over Republican challenger Scott Wagner among likely voters, the new poll finds.

One in eight voters, or 12 percent, are still undecided in the new poll.

Wolf holds a similar 51-32 percent lead among all voters, a figure effectively unchanged from the last Franklin & Marshall poll in June, where he led Wagner 48-29 percent.

A third of independents (33 percent) and 16 percent of Republicans are still on the fence in the race. Only 6 percent of Democratic respondents said they're undecided.

And despite weeks of television advertising and a billboard campaign at some key shore points, a plurality (42 percent) of the poll's 511 respondents said they still didn't know enough about Wagner to have an opinion about him one way or the other.

The poll includes a smaller sample of 222 likely voters, Franklin & Marshall pollster G. Terry Madonna said.

Wolf's approval ratings in the new poll remain consistent, with 46 percent of respondents saying he's doing a good or excellent job in the top spot -- a result similar to tallies notched in March and June F&M canvasses.

Don't Edit

The new head-to-head tallies hew closely to an NBC News/Marist College poll released last week that saw both Wolf (54-40 percent) and Casey (53-38 percent) with double digit leads over their respective Republican challengers.

The results suggest that a partisan poll released last week, that gave Wolf a far narrower 46-43 percent advantage, was an outlier.

Don't Edit

The 2018 U.S. Senate Race

Casey, of Scranton, who's running for a third, six-year term, holds a 47-34 percent lead among likely voters over his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, of Hazleton. Nineteen percent of respondents were undecided.

Though, like Wolf, more independents (38 percent) and Republicans (21 percent) were undecided than Democrats (14 percent).

Despite a high profile presidential visit earlier this month, a clear majority of respondents (53 percent) said they didn't know enough about Barletta to form an opinion.

That's down from the more than two-thirds (66 percent) who responded the same way in June, pollsters found.

Among all voters, Casey holds a 48-29 percent lead over Barletta, who opted against running for re-election to his 11th Congressional District seat.

Like Wolf, that number is unchanged from the last Franklin & Marshall poll in June, where Casey held a 44-27 percent lead among all voters.

The result is also consistent with the NBC/Marist poll, which gave Casey a 53-38 percent edge over Barletta.

Casey's approvals were slightly lower than Wolf's, with 41 percent saying he's doing a good or excellent job - a figure consistent with March and June Franklin & Marshall polls.

Don't Edit

Despite attacks from both challengers, neither Wagner nor Barletta have made their criticisms stick, Madonna said.

Wagner has spent weeks hammering Wolf over their differences in education spending. Barletta has attempted to paint Casey as a pawn of Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill and as a defender of so-called "sanctuary cities."

"Casey and Wolf don't have predominant negatives," Madonna observed of those salvoes from the challengers. "Their opponents haven't latched onto something the voters are focusing on."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

That could soon change.

More than half the state's registered voters (54 percent) said they're very interested in the coming midterm elections.

Unsurprisingly in an election traditionally hostile to the party that controls the White House, it's the insurgents -- in this case, Democrats -- who are more energized than Republicans.

Six in 10 Democratic respondents said they're "very interested" in the fall contests, compared to 53 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of independents, the poll found.

About two in five respondents, or 38 percent of registered voters, said they think President Donald Trump is doing a good or excellent job as the midpoint of his second year in office approaches.

That's higher than Trump's March result in a state he carried by 44,000 votes in 2016, and about the same as the last Franklin & Marshall poll in June.

"This is, even more than usual, a referendum on the president," Madonna said, "with Democrats and Republicans taking very different views."