I was wondering if anyone was going to poll on Pennsylvania’s special House election. The answer: Yes!
We Ask America found Democrat Mark Critz with a slight lead, 38.8 percent to Republican Tim Burns’s 34.7 percent. Another 26.4 percent are undecided. Among independents, Burns is doing extremely well, leading 72.9 percent to 10.3 percent. The sample size is a healthy 1,365.
More about Mark Critz, and other Democrats’ worries about his ethics problems, here.
UPDATE: Interesting. As mentioned earlier, May 18 will be the date of both the special election and the primary election in this district; voters will choose between Burns and Critz to represent the district for the remainder of the year, and select who will represent each party on the ballot in November. On the GOP side, that will put Burns against William Russell; on the Democrat side, Critz will take on Ryan Bucchianeri.
My partisan preferences are clear, but you could do a lot worse than electing a Democrat like Bucchianeri:
He is a 1997 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he received his commission as a naval officer. At Annapolis, he earned a degree in political science and lettered in NCAA Division I football. His career as an athlete and midshipman was featured in various national media including Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post Magazine, ABC Sports, Readers’ Digest, and A Civil War: Army vs. Navy, a national best-seller. Ryan served on active duty at sea on the USS Fife and USS Curtis Wilbur, and on land in the Middle East in support of Operations Southern Watch and Enduring Freedom. In the Middle East, he was part of the U.S. military’s first response task force against Al-Qaeda in the immediate wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.