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Specter Tied in Senate Poll

For this he changed parties?

by
Marc Tracy
July 23, 2009
Specter questioning Sonia Sotomayor last week.(Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)
Specter questioning Sonia Sotomayor last week.(Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

Senator Arlen Specter stopped being the only Jewish Republican in the U.S. Senate earlier this year, and instead become the umpteenth Jewish Democrat in the U.S. Senate, in a somewhat desperate bid to hold on to his Pennsylvania seat. (He was pretty sure to lose a Republican primary challenge from the right.) Well, it doesn’t look like the gambit is working. In early may, the 79-year-old incumbent held as 53-33 lead over that conservative challenger, Rep. Pat Toomey. According to a Quinnipiac poll yesterday, that lead is down to 45-44.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.