It’s a two-man race In Pennsylvania’s GOP senate primary, with David McCormick surging out in front and Mehmet Oz sliding down into a distant second place, an internal poll commissioned by McCormick’s campaign shows.
The poll, obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, shows no other candidate in the field coming close to the two at the top, as all trail outside the survey’s margin of error.
McCormick has taken the lead—and a substantial one at that—with 24 percent, while Oz has slipped to 18 percent. McCormick’s 6-point lead is outside the survey’s 4-point margin of error, a McLaughlin & Associates poll conducted on Feb. 16 and Feb. 17 shows. The poll’s sample size was 600 GOP primary voters, 27 percent of whom were undecided.
This latest survey seems to catch the continuation of a trend shown in a recent Trafalgar Group poll that showed Oz previously clutched a lead but was sliding as McCormick rose up through the field into second place in late January. That survey, conducted just a couple of weeks after McCormick entered the race, showed him quickly surpassing everyone but Oz—and now just a couple of weeks after that, McCormick per his internal polling has surged past Oz, leaving the celebrity doctor trailing in second place.
Pollster Jim McLaughlin told Breitbart News that these numbers bode very well for McCormick and that Oz has serious problems with growing negatives. “Oz is collapsing from previous surveys and has gained significant negatives,” McLaughlin said. “David McCormick is on the rise in the campaign for U.S. Senate. They view Oz as a Hollywood liberal RINO, and his negative attacks appear to be backfiring on Oz.”
McLaughlin also told Breitbart News that McCormick has more than doubled his support in just a few short weeks. “David McCormick leads Oz by 6 points, 24 percent/18 percent,” McLaughlin said. “In less than four weeks McCormick has more than doubled his vote share from 11 percent to 24 percent. Meanwhile, Oz’s vote share has dropped from 28 percent to 18 percent. Quite simply, Oz is heading in the wrong direction and McCormick is surging.”
What’s more, top issues in the race seem to help McCormick too, McLaughlin added. “The top issues in the race, according to the data, are economy/inflation, immigration/border and honesty/integrity,” McLaughlin said. “Voters think Biden and the Dems are a bunch of crooks and liars. They also believe David McCormick is the candidate best positioned to address these problems.”
McCormick quickly locked in top GOP endorsements from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while filling out his team with several alumni from former President Donald Trump’s White House, including Hope Hicks, Tony Sayegh, and Cliff Sims. McCormick is also endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council, which backed him during a recent trip to the U.S. border with Mexico during which he laid out a fairly aggressive agenda on immigration.