GOP Polling Firm: Clinton Leads in Pa. Against Any Republican

Maybe Pennsylvania Democrats don’t need to be worried about how the presidential race shakes out on the Republican side.

A new poll from Republican firm Harper Polling says Hillary Clinton currently beats Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in hypothetical presidential elections.

Clinton tops Trump, the current Republican frontrunner, 45-40 percent with 15 percent undecided. She bests Cruz, 48-37 percent with 15 percent undecided. In a hypothetical race in Pennsylvania against Marco Rubio, who some pundits have declared dead in the water already, Clinton wins, 46-40 with 15 percent undecided (this exceeds 100 percent due to rounding).

Harper, who previously released a poll putting Kathleen Kane in first in the attorney general’s race, polled 662 likely voters in Pennsylvania using Interactive Voice Response on March 1st and 2nd. The margin of error is +/-3.75 percent.

Clinton leads in the southeast (Philly) and southwest (Pittsburgh) against all three Republican challengers; she trails in Harper’s “Northern Tier, Scranton/Lehigh Valley and South Central” areas. Most interestingly, she trails Trump (46%-30%) and Rubio (40%-27%) among independents. (She edges Cruz, 37%-36%.)

Harper was founded after the 2012 election by Brock McCleary, the former director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. It is essentially the right-leaning equivalent to Public Policy Polling — though Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight rates Harper just a C+ (PPP gets a B-). Also, PPP tends to ask funny questions; Harper Polling doesn’t really do that, though it did note John Fetterman‘s popularity among people with tattoos in January.

The firm also did some polls for this year’s senate race; Pat Toomey‘s lead against three hypothetical challengers has slipped a bit since the last time Harper asked, though his favorability rating remains above water. Toomey leads Joe Sestak (47%-41%), Katie McGinty (47%-39%) and Fetterman (47%-36%). Both Sestak and McGinty have made up ground the previous time Harper did a poll (Fetterman was not tested last time).

Meanwhile, Harper says Clinton holds a commanding edge over Bernie Sanders in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, 57 percent to 27 percent. Trump leads on the Republican side with 36 percent; Rubio is at 19, Cruz 17 and John Kasich (who Rubio is trying to get off the Pa. ballot) 10 percent. Ben Carson, who was in the race when this poll was commissioned but has since dropped out, came in ahead of the Ohio governor with 11 percent.

Follow @dhm on Twitter.