New poll: Lamb leads Rothfus by wide margin

A new poll of one of Pennsylvania’s most critical congressional races shows Democrat Conor Lamb with a large lead over Republican Keith Rothfus, reflecting several trends that could weigh heavily in similar contests.

In the race for Pennsylvania’s new 17th District — which encompasses the northern half of Allegheny County, most of Beaver County and a small corner of Butler County — Mr. Lamb has a 51 percent to 39 percent lead among potential voters, those who have participated in an election since 2010 or are newly registered to vote, according to the survey from the Monmouth University Polling Institute. His lead is even larger in a model that predicts a Democratic turnout surge.

The race is unusual in several respects: Mr. Lamb has high name recognition due to his nationally watched special election win in March; the contest features two incumbent congressmen, pitted against each other by Pennsylvania’s new congressional map; and the new districts have undercut Mr. Rothfus’ advantage in experience by throwing in a wave of new voters who don’t know him — and who lean far more left than those in his old, safely Republican district.

But other trends showing a Democratic surge in enthusiasm, driven by suburban disapproval of President Donald Trump, are consistent across the swing districts that Monmouth has surveyed, said Patrick Murray, director of the polling institute.

“We’re seeing that in every race we’ve polled,” Mr. Murray said, listing seven competitive races, including contests in Bucks County, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. The race in the 17th District also could offer parallels to other moderate swing districtsaround Philadelphia.

In the Lamb-Rothfus race, the survey found Republicans are

also hurt by some of Mr. Trump’s signature economic policies, such as his tax cuts and tariffs.

Muchcan change by Election Day, but the poll could be a window into the atmosphere surrounding key races in November’s fight forcontrol of the House. Among them: • Disapproval of Mr. Trump is driving Democrats, and outpaces the president’s support in these kind of relatively balanced districts. Overall, 44 percent approved of the president’s job performance and 51 percent disapproved. But the depth of feeling weighs on the Democratic side: 43 percent strongly disapproved vs. 28 percent who strongly approved.

• Mr. Trump is a driving factor: 63 percent of those surveyed said it’s very important for them to cast a vote that shows how they feel about the president. Again, the feeling was stronger among his critics: 73 percent of them felt that way vs. 59 percent of Trump supporters.

• Key Trump policies aren’t playing well in this race: Nearly half of the voters in the race, 48 percent, said the president’s trade and tariff policies will hurt the economy in that area, while 31 percent said the policies will help. On the GOP tax plan, there is a slight Republican advantage: 43 percent approved vs. 39 percent who disapproved. But 31 percent said they believe their tax bill will likely go up vs. 22 percent who think it will go down — even though nonpartisan estimates predicted that the vast majority of taxpayers would pay less, at least initially.

“It comes down to breadand-butterissues,” Mr. Murray said. “This is one of the reasons why Lamb won the [special election]. Folks there were concerned about trade policies, tariffs — they don’t play well in this district. We’re finding that in other industrial districts that we’re polling.”

There are some key factors, though, that make this race different from other swing districts, and which can’t be easily replicated elsewhere:

• Mr. Lamb has been in Congress only for a few months, but the Democrat is more well-known and more popular than his three-term rival: 44 percent have a favorable impression of the 34-year-old newcomer, while 17 percent see him unfavorably. For Mr. Rothfus, those numbers are 31-23. Mr. Lamb’s rating is likely a residual effect of his special election, in which Mr. Trump made a personal visit to campaign for the Republican nominee, state Rep. Rick Saccone.

• Mr. Rothfus also lost much of the advantage of incumbency due to the new congressional map, drawn by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to replace what it ruled were unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts.

The poll surveyed 401 voters in Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District from July 19 to 22. The margin of error is 4.9 percentage points for the full sample and 5.2 percentage points for thelikely voter models.