Gov. Josh Shapiro maintains strong approval rating, voters aren’t familiar with Supreme Court race, and other takeaways from a Pa. poll

Pennsylvania voters don’t know much about the upcoming state Supreme Court race, but most have an opinion on the 2024 presidential election, with many saying both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are too old to serve another term, according to a recent poll.

The Franklin & Marshall College Poll surveyed 873 registered Pennsylvania voters about their views on candidates, politicians, and a variety of issues, including what they think about the direction of Pennsylvania state government and the job performance of Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Bob Casey, who is running for reelection in 2024.

Berwood Yost, director of the F&M poll, said the poll can be an effective tool for assessing people’s experiences and informing policy, but not always for predicting elections. Some people make up their minds the moment they step into the voting booth, Yost said.

“If you don’t know what you’re going to do, I can’t predict what you’re going to do,” he said, as Pennsylvania voters prepare to head to the polls Tuesday to elect a new state Supreme Court justice.

Here are some key findings from the latest poll, conducted last month:

More than 70% of Pennsylvania voters aren’t familiar with the state Supreme Court candidates, the poll found, with 76% saying they haven’t heard enough about Democrat Daniel McCaffery to have an opinion and 71% saying the same about Republican Carolyn Carluccio.

While voters heading into an election without knowing who is running for judge is typical, it’s still “an indictment” of the electoral process, in Yost’s eyes.

“Those positions are really important, and the judicial branch is the third coequal branch of government,” he said. “It just doesn’t get the attention it deserves.”

While millions of dollars have been spent on this year’s Supreme Court race, it “pales” in comparison to other races, he added.

The poll gave no insight into which candidate is ahead in the race. Yost said the poll intentionally didn’t ask which candidate respondents would vote for because he didn’t expect people to know who they are.

More than half (55%) of poll respondents believe things in Pennsylvania are generally headed “off on the wrong track.”

Half of respondents said they are financially worse off than a year ago. The poll found that the economy and the government or politicians were most commonly picked as the top issue in the state, with each garnering 18%.

“I suspect people are generally in a bad mood and pessimistic in part because they have these economic concerns, and in part because they think a lot of our politics doesn’t work very well,” Yost said.

And yet Shapiro received the highest approval rating for a governor at this point in a first term since Gov. Tom Ridge — who left the position in 2001 — with 49% of respondents believing he is doing an “excellent” (19%) or “good” (30%) job.

Yost said Shapiro isn’t immune if the state takes a turn for the worse, but people are probably placing blame elsewhere, like with Biden or the state legislature — which only 13% of registered voters believe is doing an excellent or good job, according to an August F&M poll.

Casey’s reelection campaign against Republican challenger David McCormick will be one of the closest watched in the nation next year as Democrats work to cling onto their razor-thin majority in the U.S. Senate. The race is also expected to be among the nation’s most expensive.

Casey defeated former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta by 13 points in 2018 when he ran for a third term.

But 29% of respondents said they don’t know the senator well enough to have an opinion about him, while 18% have a strongly favorable opinion and 24% somewhat favorable. As for how he is handling his job as senator, 12% said he is doing an excellent job — up from 7% in August — while 24% said he is doing a good job, and 21% didn’t know.

Yost expects Casey’s ratings to improve as he hits the campaign trail, and credits his lack of name recognition to his lack of serious challengers over the years.

“You run for office, you advertise your successes, that usually raises your profile, then you go back to Washington for six years and while you’re still doing the work in the state, you’re not telling people what you’re doing with the same intensity,” Yost said.

When Casey was running in September 2017, 22% of respondents didn’t know how he was doing as senator. That number fizzled down to 9% in October 2018 before going back up this year.

Still, the poll currently favors Casey, with 46% of respondents saying they would vote for him and 39% saying they would vote for McCormick if the 2024 election was held today.

Trump is a solid favorite among Republican primary voters in Pennsylvania, with 55% saying he is their first choice, up from 39% in August. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ranked second, at a distant 14%.

If the 2024 general election was today, 44% of poll respondents would vote for Biden and 42% would vote for Trump. But the difference between those figures falls within the poll’s 4.1% margin of error, showing that a Biden-Trump rematch would essentially be a tossup, and both candidates can expect fierce competition in this critical swing state.

But respondents didn’t seem too thrilled about either candidate’s age. Asked whether Biden, Trump, or both men are too old to serve another term, 43% said both are too old, 41% said only Biden, and just 4% said only Trump.

Age will be a factor on the campaign trail for both candidates, but the poll results show that the issue is more glaring for Biden, 80, who is already the oldest U.S. president. Trump is 77.