By Associated Press - Wednesday, May 14, 2014

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Tom Wolf maintains a 19-point lead over his closest competitor in Pennsylvania’s four-way race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, according to poll results released Wednesday, as candidates launched themselves into the campaign’s homestretch with a heavy schedule of public events.

The Franklin & Marshall College survey showed the York businessman is favored by 33 percent of Democratic voters - unchanged from a March survey by the same pollster. Meanwhile, the proportion of undecided voters dropped from 46 percent to 39 percent.

The poll showed growing support for the other candidates. But only days before Tuesday’s primary election, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz had 14 percent, state Treasurer Rob McCord had 9 percent and former Clinton White House environmental adviser Katie McGinty had 5 percent.

Wolf’s injection of $10 million in his campaign enabled him to launch a statewide TV advertising campaign in late January that gave him an early, sizable lead his opponents have been unable to crack. The others did not begin regular TV spots until at least seven weeks later.

McCord and Schwartz, who have attacked Wolf in debates and TV ads, saw sharp increases since the March survey in the proportion of voters who view them unfavorably, the latest poll shows. Schwartz’s negative rating doubled to 12 percent, while McCord’s increased sevenfold to 14 percent.

Poll respondents said honesty is the quality that matters most in a gubernatorial candidate. They cited education and jobs as the most pressing issues, as they did in previous polls.

Political debates remain a largely untapped source of information about the candidates, the poll shows. Ninety-four percent of the respondents said they hadn’t watched any of the more than a dozen debates that have been held during this campaign.

The candidates, who hail from Pennsylvania’s southeastern corner, scattered across the state to shake hands and talk to voters after Monday night’s final televised debate in Philadelphia, their campaigns said.

On Wednesday, McGinty sat down with supporters of state Rep. Patty Kim at a diner north of Harrisburg to discuss ways to give felons job training and a second chance in the job market. On her way in, the Philadelphia-born candidate joked with a table of mixed Philadelphia and Pittsburgh sports fans and said some of the best advertising she’d had was when her sister sat behind home plate at a Phillies game holding a McGinty campaign sign.

One of them, Chuck Magda, a retired bread truck supervisor from the Harrisburg suburb of Enola, said he plans to vote for McGinty.

“She’s a Pennsylvania gal, she has a big family, she worked for Clinton,” Magda said. “I think she’s a straight shooter.”

McGinty was to appear at events in southwestern Pennsylvania from Thursday through Saturday.

Wolf campaigned in the state’s north-central tier Wednesday, with events planned in Williamsport, Lock Haven and DuBois, then planned to spend Thursday and Friday in Pittsburgh and other parts of southwestern Pennsylvania before moving onto the Philadelphia suburbs Saturday.

McCord was on a bus tour with planned stops Wednesday in Williamsport, State College and Altoona. He was scheduled to visit Johnstown, Erie and Pittsburgh before heading back to Harrisburg on Saturday.

Schwartz was in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. She planned to campaign in southeastern Pennsylvania on Thursday and Friday.

On Tuesday, she’ll have the vote of Ellis Roy, a retired Harrisburg police lieutenant who said her experience in the U.S. House makes her the most adept candidate to get Democratic Party priorities through the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

“I think she’s probably more politically savvy than anyone in the race,” Roy said Wednesday.

Franklin & Marshall’s telephone poll of 530 Democratic voters was conducted between May 6 and Monday. It has a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.

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