Squirrel Hill massacre, mailing of pipe bombs occurred just before midterm elections
The Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, was in the midst of polling the state’s registered voters last weekend when news began surfacing about the massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. It came on the heels of news about pipe bombs being sent to prominent Democrats.
Occurring just a few days before the midterm elections, will these events affect the results?
“The short answer is, we don’t know,” said pollster Terry Madonna of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall.
“It may have a reinforcing effect. I don’t see a lot of movement back and forth.”
By “reinforcing effect,” Madonna said Democrats will see the criminal acts as emboldened by the language of President Donald Trump, while Republicans will shrug off the targets of the pipe bomb suspect as merely Trump’s foes Hillary Clinton and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters.
“Both sides are blaming each other. The shooter was also anti-Trump and upset about his policy toward Israel. He’s been one of the more pro-Israel presidents recently,” Madonna said.
“If you stopped polling on Sunday, it’s not going to likely tell you very much, because you were only interviewing one day.”
The Center for Opinion and Research poll, released Thursday, was conducted Oct. 22 through 28 among 254 Democrats, 211 Republicans and 72 independents.
In it, 71 percent of the voters surveyed said they are “very interested” in the 2018 elections, an increase of 10 points since the poll’s September inquiry.
Similar numbers of Republicans and Democrats said they were “very interested” in the election, which is a change from Franklin & Marshall’s findings in September when 64 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans were “very interested.”
The first pipe bomb reported to authorities arrived Oct. 23 at the New York home of billionaire financier George Soros. Fifteen, including those addressed to former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, were alleged to have been connected to Cesar Sayoc in Florida, who has been charged with mailing bombs.
“In polls done after the pipe bombs, there didn’t seem to be any change there,” Madonna said.
Washington & Jefferson College Political Science Department Chairman Dr. Joseph DiSarro typically restricts his polling to presidential election years, but he wishes he had dipped a toe into the water for the midterms.
“There’s a lot riding on the midterms, which isn’t usually the case,” he said Thursday.
He thinks the Squirrel Hill rampage, in which 11 attending services at Tree of Life Synagogue were killed and six were wounded Oct. 27, could have an impact on voting.
“Such a violent, horrible tragedy,” DiSarro said. “It could be anything from people being disgusted with politics and not voting and just staying home or electing someone who would protect their individual rights the best.”
The local professor has advised only one candidate in Tuesday’s elections, state Sen. Guy Reschenthaler in the seat he currently holds in the 37th District, not for his congressional bid against Democrat Bibiana Boerio of Westmoreland County. Reschenthaler recently moved to Peters Township.
The Congressional race DiSarro will be monitoring most closely is that of U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a car dealer and incumbent Republican, and Ron DiNicola, a Democratic lawyer from Erie.
“Surprisingly, Mike Kelly seems to running a rather tight race against DiNicola,” DiSarro said.
“That’s the race to watch. If Mike Kelly loses, Democrats are going to be winning back Congress.
“I firmly believe it’ll be a function of turnout. If it’s a high turnout, I strongly believe the Democrats will do rather well and probably gain control of the House of Representatives, not the Senate.
“A low turnout will favor Republican candidates, and conceivably, if that is the case, they will retain control of both houses of Congress.”