Democratic Senate incumbents leading in 2 swing states: Polling

Incumbent Democratic senators running for reelection in two key battleground states lead their Republican opponents in polling released Monday.

The polling of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from CBS News/YouGov showed Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) leading Republican nominee Dave McCormick by 7 points, 46 percent to 39 percent, and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) leading her likely GOP challenger Eric Hovde also by 7 points, 48 percent to 41 percent.

In the Pennsylvania poll, 3 percent of respondents said they would support someone else and 12 percent said they were undecided, while in Wisconsin, 3 percent said they would support someone else and 8 percent said they were undecided.

The Keystone State and the Badger State will likely be the site of some of the most contentious races of the year. Both will be key to President Biden’s and former President Trump’s paths to victory in the presidential race, and the results of their Senate races could help determine which party has a majority in the chamber during the next session of Congress.

Casey is seeking his fourth term representing Pennsylvania, while Baldwin is running for her third term. McCormick officially became the Republican nominee to oppose Casey following Pennsylvania’s primary last week.

Wisconsin’s primaries will not be until August, but Hovde has largely coalesced Republican support behind his campaign.

CBS noted in its post on the polls that the numbers could change as Election Day approaches, especially since polling has shown that McCormick and Hovde are much less well-known than Casey and Baldwin. It also noted that most of those who said they are undecided in the Senate race are Republicans who are mostly supporting Trump in the presidential race.

The polling found that 5 percent of likely voters in Pennsylvania and 4 percent of likely voters in Wisconsin chose candidates from different parties in the presidential and Senate races, which gave the Democratic senators a slight advantage.

The polls were conducted April 19-5 among 1,306 registered voters in Pennsylvania and 1,245 registered voters in Wisconsin. The margin of error was 3.1 points in Pennsylvania and 3.2 points in Wisconsin.