Harper Poll: McGinty Moves to First Place, Shapiro Has Commanding Lead

The final poll of the Pennsylvania primary, conducted by conservative firm Harper Polling, found that Katie McGinty has moved into first place just one day before the Democratic Senate primary. Previous polls showed Joe Sestak leading the race, or Sestak and McGinty tied. In the poll, 39 percent of voters said they would vote for Katie McGinty — compared to just 33 percent for Joe Sestak, 15 percent for John Fetterman and 3 percent for Joseph Vodvarka. Eleven percent are undecided.

In the previous Harper Poll in early April, Sestak had 41 percent, McGinty had 31 percent and Fetterman had 9. (Vodvarka, who had been kicked off the ballot but was reinstated last week, was not polled that time.)

Meanwhile, Harper Polling’s latest survey of the Democratic attorney general race shows Josh Shapiro with a commanding lead over Stephen Zappala. In the poll, which sampled 641 likely Democratic primary voters in the state between April 21st and 23rd, Shapiro gets 41 percent of the vote, with Zappala getting 23 and John Morganelli with 15 percent. A previous poll showed Shapiro with 33, Zappala with 17 and Morganelli with 16.

Responding to a previous Harper poll, IBEW Local 98 spokesman and Zappala ally Frank Keel said the poll was “highly questionable” and “clearly commissioned by Shapiro.” Both Harper Polling and the Shapiro camp denied the allegation. Harper has previously said it was conducting research for GOP attorney general candidate John Rafferty, a state senator.

The Harper poll also shows Hillary Clinton with a big lead over Bernie Sanders.

The poll found 61 percent of those sampled said they would vote for Hillary Clinton tomorrow. Bernie Sanders got 33 percent of the vote. Harper Polling — essentially the right-wing equivalent to Public Policy Polling – previously gave Clinton a 55-33 edge in a poll conducted in April.

Harper received a pollster rating of C+ by FiveThirtyEight.

Follow @dhm on Twitter.