At last, Arlen Specter comes out winning in a poll. This one is the Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday (March 2). It shows the incumbent U.S. Senator ahead of both his likely November opponent, Pat Toomey by 49%-42% and, closer at hand, ahead of U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak 53%-29% in the Democratic primary. These are the first positive poll numbers for the Democratic (nee Republican) incumbent in months, so they have to be encouraging to the Specter campaign. That said, some caveats: the majority of voters (52%) still say Specter does not deserve re-election and Sestak's numbers are influenced by the fact that about three-quarters of the Democrats polled are unfamiliar with him. As Dan Hirschhorn points out in pa2010.com that could change as Sestak goes up statewide with his TV advertising campaign.
