Pennsylvania Senate race narrows sharply

In the past two weeks, the contest between Toomey and Rep. Joe Sestak, a Democrat, has become a near tossup, with Toomey’s once-comfortable lead shrinking from 9 points to just two or three points.

Toomey acknowledged his bleaker prospects when he met with voters Friday in the outskirts of Philadelphia, a critical swing area that could help determine the winner on Nov. 2.

“This race is close,” Toomey solemnly told a crowd at a fire station rally in Montgomery County. “I think we are on the right side of close, but it’s close.”

With Sestak closing in, the contest has reached a fever pitch.

The race resembles several nationally in which GOP candidates sprinted out to big leads, riding a national mood of discontent and anti-Obama administration feeling, and are now trying to hold on to the finish line. Republicans still appear to have a strong chance to take over control of the House, but now face long odds in their effort to make up the ten-seat margin Democrats hold in the Senate. Pennsylvania has become a must-win for the GOP to have a shot at that fading goal.

Sestak is a retired Navy admiral who is serving his second term in the House of Representatives. Toomey, a House member from 1999-2005, is a former Wall Street trader who also led the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative political action committee.

The two parties and outside groups are spending millions of dollars on the race and saturating the airwaves with attack ads, with each candidate painting the other as an extremist.

“Pat Toomey — Pennsylvania’s most right wing congressman,” one Sestak ad declares. Toomey, in turn, is airing ads attacking Sestak over his liberal voting record, which included support for health care reform and a bill that would cap carbon emissions.

“Joe Sestak voted for the cap and trade energy tax that experts say will kill thousands of Pennsylvania jobs,” a new Toomey ad warns.

The negative volleys continued during a debate held at WPXI television in Pittsburgh Friday night, where moderator David Johnson had to interrupt Sestak’s denouncement of Toomey’s Wall Street past and ask him to answer the actual question about a lack of local bus service in some impoverished areas of the state.

Toomey also steered his answers into attacks against Sestak.

“Joe has no experience in business and he doesn’t understand the consequences of the things he’s proposing,” Toomey said in response to a question about his views on tax cuts.

With no clear winner in either of the two debates, the race will likely hinge on whether Democrats can marshal enough of their voting base on Nov. 2 to counter the expected wave of Republican enthusiasm that could boost the numbers for Toomey and other GOP candidates nationwide.

“The real question is, have the Democrats done all they are going to do and can Toomey somehow, because of the enthusiasm level, find a way to eek out a victory,” said Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin and Marshall College Poll.

Madonna pointed out that the national Democratic party is frantically searching for the 975,000 Pennsylvania Democrats who became first-time voters in 2008, during an unprecedented surge in party registration. Statewide, there are about 1.8 million more Democratic voters than Republican ones, he said.

President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and former President Bill Clinton have all campaigned here, hoping to stir up enthusiasm for Sestak in an otherwise depressed Democratic electorate.

Sestak barnstormed across the state this weekend, meeting voters in Erie, State College, West Chester and Media, as part of a strategy that helped push him to an improbable victory over Republican-turned-Democratic incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter in the primary earlier this year.

But his efforts could fall short this time as even some long-time Democrats say they are angry at their party over the economy and spending.

“I saw my taxes go up,” Linda Hertzog, a homemaker from Westchester, said, explaining her switch to Toomey.

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