Democrats Bob Casey, Tom Wolf have big leads in Pa. poll amid family separation outrage

Candy Woodall , Geoff Morrow | York Daily Record

Show Caption Hide Caption Barletta vs. Casey: A Pa. county to watch In this county they are both hometown boys, Terry Madonna says.

Pennsylvania voters believe President Donald Trump kept his campaign promises, and that’s why they want him gone.

They can’t vote for another president until 2020, but the majority of midterm voters in the state plan to vote out Trump’s supporters in the fall, according to a new Suffolk University/York Daily Record poll released Wednesday.

Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey have double-digit leads over their Republican challengers, Scott Wagner and Rep. Lou Barletta.

That’s not completely surprising, as midterms are typically won by the opposing party of the president. For example, 2010 was the last time Pennsylvania elected a governor and a U.S. Senate candidate during the midterms. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, was in office then, and Pennsylvania elected two Republicans: Gov. Tom Corbett and Sen. Pat Toomey.

But Republicans this year face a bigger challenge now than Democrats did in 2010 because Pennsylvania Democrats didn’t have to distance themselves from Obama eight years ago.

“Aligning with Trump is a bad idea and disassociating with Trump won’t get the Trump voters to the polls,” said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University Political Research Center.

'Current electorate is anti-Trump'

Suffolk polls for The Boston Globe, USA Today and its network of news organizations across the country, and data shows Trump voters from 2016 are not amped up about either Republican candidate in Pennsylvania, Paleologos said.

“It poses an interesting problem for Republicans,” he said. “The current electorate is anti-Trump.”

In Pennsylvania, Trump still has a lot of support among his base, but that base isn’t supporting Barletta and Wagner.

That’s partially because they are still unknown, with 30 percent of poll respondents saying they’ve never heard of Barletta and 12 percent saying they’ve never heard of Wagner, a York County businessman and former state senator.

Casey is leading Barletta, 47 percent to 32 percent. About 20 percent are undecided.

Wolf is leading Wagner, 49 percent to 36 percent. About 14 percent are undecided.

Casey, who has become one of Trump’s fiercest critics on Twitter, has a favorable rating at 54 percent – the highest in Pennsylvania.

Barletta, who has aligned with Trump on every policy decision, has a favorable rating of 21 percent. It’s important to note again that 30 percent of voters couldn’t rate him favorably or unfavorably because they said they never heard of him.

Wolf has a favorable rating of 50 percent compared to Wagner’s 27 percent. And again, it’s important to note that 13 percent of voters couldn’t rate him favorably or unfavorably because they said they never heard of him.

More: Who is Tom Wolf?

More: Who is Scott Wagner?

More: Here's the one reason both Pa. governor candidates are from York County

Immigration, family separation outrage

Also, pollsters surveyed Pennsylvania voters last week during the height of outrage at Trump’s immigration policy. Democrats, Republicans and independents surveyed expressed opposition to family separation.

“I understand the need for border security and to possibly detain these people, but we can do it in a clean, safe way and maybe not by ripping an 8-year-old from his parents and saying he has to represent himself,” said Jared Bayer, a 28-year-old Democrat in Allegheny County. “We are a nation that has said we will take your huddled masses, your poor, your weak, but any time we’re put to it, we don’t.”

A Republican voter and Trump supporter in Lehigh County had a different take. She opposes illegal immigration but also doesn’t want to see families separated.

“Where are they getting all the money for this?” said Janice Perry, a 59-year-old resident in Slatington Borough. “If we take all these people in and just greenlight them in, who pays for that? Who builds the schools? Who takes care of the hospital bills? You take the whole family collectively and send them back where they came from.”

Immigrants have to enter the U.S. legally, she said.

“I have to follow all the rules, the driving rules, the insurance rules,” Perry said. “These people aren’t following the rules. That’s not fair to us.”

Patrick Wallace, a 54-year-old Pottstown resident who doesn’t identify with a political party, simply said, “I think it’s being handled completely without heart, without thought and without compassion.”

Family separation and Trump’s immigration policy could be a major issue in the fall, according to G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist and pollster at Franklin & Marshall College.

“Voters see it as terribly inhumane,” he said. “It needs to be dealt with and dealt with quickly.”

"We were in terror": Woman reflects on family separation Magda, an undocumented immigrant, reflects on her experience after being reunited with her children.

Other issues include guns, minimum wage

Other Pennsylvania issues motivating voters to the polls include a semi-automatic weapons ban, gerrymandering and minimum wage.

Some 61 percent of voters said the next governor of Pennsylvania should move to ban semi-automatic weapons, compared to 34 percent who disagreed.

That stood out to Paleologos, who said half of those surveyed are gun owners.

Also, 46 percent said Pennsylvania should raise the age requirement to buy a firearm from 18 to 21 years old, compared to 22 percent who disagreed.

A Pennsylvania House committee recently voted to outlaw rapid-fire bump stocks.

There’s a bit more uncertainty among voters about redistricting. While 44 percent say redrawing congressional districts in 2010 was unfair and 23 percent say it was fair, some 30 percent of those surveyed said they are undecided.

More: Pennsylvania redistricting leads to GOP worry, talk of impeaching justices

Voters are more decisive on minimum wage. Given a choice of raising minimum wage or keeping it at $7.25 per hour, those polled chose to raise it, 84 percent to 12 percent.

Responses varied on how much it should be raised, with 32 percent saying $12, 24 percent saying $15, 23 percent saying $9 and 5 percent saying $20.

Those responses surprised Paleologos, who thought more voters would chose the $15 option instead of the $12 minimum wage Wolf has proposed.

More: Here's where Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf stands on the minimum wage

“I thought the higher amount would’ve been the right amount, but the governor hit the sweet spot with $12,” Paleologos said.

Most voters say it’s impossible to live on the current minimum wage.

“I would like any of us to try and live on $7.50 an hour. It’s ridiculous,” said Terry Groff, a 77-year-old Chester County resident who grew up in Lancaster County. “I’m very lucky. I retired at 59.”

Wallace would like to see the minimum wage reach $20 to remake the middle class he said has disappeared.

“It’s a well-known fact that, in America, you can have a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job and still need food assistance,” he said. “That’s just wrong in America. When I was growing up, you could have a house, raise a family, take a vacation, all of that on the same type of salary, and that’s a pipe dream these days.”

Other voters like Brian Perry, a 55-year-old Republican from Lehigh County, said minimum wage was never intended to be a lifelong job.

“Minimum wage is something you start off as a kid,” he said. “You’re not supposed to raise a family on minimum wage.”

Bayer sees $12 an hour as a happy medium.

“We do need to increase the minimum to make it livable, but increasing it right now to $15 would screw over small businesses,” he said. “There is a middle ground to be found.”

Focus on the working class

Other key issues in the election are the economy, education, taxes and healthcare.

That’s why Perry said he’s supporting Wagner: “He started his own business and built it up.”

It’s also why Wallace is supporting Wolf: “Governor Wolf has done a good job in bringing some work back to Pennsylvania workers.”

And it’s why Groff said he’s supporting Casey: “I think Casey cares about the working class.”

Focusing on the working class will help Democrats win the counties Trump flipped in 2016, Madonna said.

And candidates would be wise to pay attention to this result from the Suffolk poll: 68 percent of voters support an open primary, allowing independents to vote.

“It doesn’t make any sense to limit my choices as a voter to have to vote straight Democrat or Republican,” Wallace said. “It’s un-American to me. Why are you not able to choose from either side? If I go to a restaurant and don’t like one side of the menu, I can choose from the other side. It’s a freedom of choice. It doesn’t even make sense politically to that choice away. My question to the people who make the rules is, ‘What are you afraid of?’”