Jun 19, 2002 2 min read

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Democrat Edward G. Rendell maintains a comfortable lead over Republican Mike Fisher in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, more than four months before the Nov. 5 election, according to a poll released Tuesday. Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor who defeated state Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. in the May 21 Democratic primary, is supported by 42 percent of the voters, while state Attorney General Fisher is backed by 30 percent, the Keystone Poll showed.

Twenty-five percent of the respondents were undecided, and 3 percent said they supported Green Party hopeful Michael Morrill or someone else.

The survey consisted of interviews with 456 registered voters, and the results carry a sampling error margin of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.

The poll was conducted by Millersville University’s Center for Opinion Research for the Philadelphia Daily News, The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Fox News-Philadelphia,

“Rendell’s huge TV effort in the primary campaign helped raise his name recognition from half of all voters in October 2001 to more than four in five at the moment,” the poll’s authors said in an accompanying narrative. “Fisher is recognized by about half of the state’s voters, although he has yet to mount a major media campaign.”

The survey showed a regional divide between Rendell and Fisher, who is from Pittsburgh, that paralleled the one that marked the primary battle between Rendell and Casey.

Rendell enjoys lopsided support in Philadelphia and its suburbs, and smaller leads in northeastern Pennsylvania, while Fisher is stronger in central and northwestern Pennsylvania.

The survey results were closer in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Kent Gates, Fisher’s campaign manager, said he was encouraged that 55 percent of the respondents said they felt Pennsylvania is generally headed in the right direction after nearly eight years under a GOP administration. Gates even professed to find the bottom-line numbers encouraging.

“I couldn’t be happier with those numbers – Ed Rendell spent $18 million and has 42 percent of the vote?” Gates said. “I’ll take that any day.”

Dan Fee, Rendell’s campaign spokesman, said the poll shows Rendell is “in a good position heading into the fall campaign.”

“What it shows is, we can’t let up for one second. Luckily, we were never intending to,” he said. “We will be out there campaigning for every single vote.”