2010 Pennsylvania Governor - Corbett vs. Onorato

11/2/10 7:15am -- Corbett has closed well, and he is well poised to win the governorship here.

10/21/10 -- The recent PPP poll shows a 2-point lead for Corbett, but every other pollster shows him with a larger lead.  It could be that undecideds are leaning Democrat (which would be consistent with the Senate polling) or it could be that PPP is the outlier here.

10/11/10 -- Corbett's lead has narrowed some, but he still leads by about ten points in the polls, and he's still around fifty percent.  Onorato seems to have consolidated his base a bit, but isn't showing the type of movement he'll need to show to win here.  This becomes a longer shot for him every day.

----------Race Preview---------

There are some trends in politics that border on the surreal. Virginia always elects a governor from the opposite party of the one holding the White House (true since the 1970s). The North Carolina Senate seat currently occupied by Richard Burr switches parties every six years (true since the 1970s). And the Pennsylvania governorship switches parties every eight years. The latter has been true since 1954, when Pennsylvania elected only its fourth Democratic governor since the close of the Civil War.

The last time the governorship switched was in 2002, when the state elected Ed Rendell. Rendell was handily re-elected in 2006, but his approval ratings have slid since then. The Democrats selected Allegheny (Pittsburgh) County Executive Dan Onorato as their standard bearer – a smart move given that his base is in an area of the state that has been trending away from them. Republicans nominated Attorney General and former United States Attorney Tom Corbett. Corbett led handily in the polls through August, but there’s plenty of time for the slight Democratic lean of the state to reassert itself.