Pennsylvania — 7th District

Pennsylvania voters are overwhelmingly pessimistic about President Donald Trump’s performance, and that pessimism is creating problems for Republican candidates statewide, including in the hotly contested 7th Congressional District race, according to a poll released Thursday.

Democratic challenger Bob Brooks leads Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie 45% to 40%, according to a survey of 357 registered voters by the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College, within the poll’s margin of error.

Researchers, who also surveyed voters in Pennsylvania’s battleground 10th District in Dauphin County, tied Democratic candidates’ edge to Trump’s missteps.

In the 7th District, which encompasses Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties plus parts of Monroe County, 73% of voters polled gave Trump a fair/poor job approval rating and 62% said Trump’s policies have hurt them.

This matters for down-ballot candidates, pollsters said. About 43% of Republicans in the 7th District report they are “worse off” financially than they were a year ago.

Brooks’ campaign said the poll reflected how residents are feeling in this tight economy.

“Bob has worked every day of his life, from bartending and delivering pizzas to 20 years fighting fires in Bethlehem, and he’ll work just as hard in Congress to bring down costs for working families in the Lehigh Valley,” said campaign spokesman Benny Stanislawski.

“We know this race will be tight, and Trump will spend millions to save his lapdog, Ryan Mackenzie. But people are ready for a change, and we’re going to run through the tape and fight for every single vote,” Stanislawski added.

Arnaud Armstrong, a spokesman for Mackenzie’s campaign, said the congressman was confident that his record would resonate with voters.

“As Congressman Mackenzie has said from the beginning, this race will once again be among the closest in the country,” Armstrong said. “Ryan Mackenzie knows that votes in our communities have to be earned, which is why he has accepted multiple opportunities to debate before the start of mail-in voting. While Bob Brooks has refused to do the same, Congressman Mackenzie looks forward to contrasting his record of common sense against Bob Brooks’ record of corruption and left-wing extremism.”

In the 10th District, Democrat Janelle Stelson leads Republican Rep. Scott Perry 47% to 44%.

The two districts are among the handful nationwide considered truly up for grabs, and thus likely to determine which party controls the U.S. House next term.

The majority of those polled — 39% — listed the economy as their top concern, ahead of government/politicians (14%), data centers (5%) and immigration (2%).

The Republican congressional candidates in the two districts were only winning about 7 in 10 Republican voters who reported being “worse off,” while they won almost every Republican who said they are “better off.”

Both Democrats led among independent and moderate voters.

About 48% of voters in the poll reported themselves as “likely” voters. Brooks’ lead grew among those reporting themselves as likely, according to the poll, but it didn’t say by how much “because of the small sample size of the likely voter pool.”

At the same time, among 7th District voters who reported being “very interested” in the upcoming election, Democrats had an eight-point edge, according to researchers.

Still, 16% of voters in the 7th District considered themselves undecided.

In statewide races, the Lehigh Valley was split on its opinion of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, with 43% giving him a rating of excellent/good, and 44% fair/poor.

Only 38% of respondents said the state was headed in the right direction.

Despite that, Shapiro had a 23-point lead over his Republican challenger, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, 53%-30%, among 7th District voters.

For the survey, pollsters interviewed 147 Democrats, 136 Republicans, and 74 independents in the 7th District from Sept. 9-20. That poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 5.8 percentage points.

This is a developing story story. Check back for updates.