Polls, ads and…a smile? See who made this week’s list!

Katie McGinty. The dawn of this week brought a new Morning Call/Muhlenberg College survey that had the Democratic nominee with a five-point lead over the GOP incumbent. Thanks to those results and others like them, McGinty is now considered the favorite in the PA-Sen race according to FiveThirtyEight’s new Senate forecast. Furthermore, Nate Silver himself wrote about the race and identified it as the seat that may turn the upper chamber blue. Of course there’s still six and a half weeks left and Pat Toomey will put up quite the fight, nonetheless McGinty is the front-runner as we enter the fall. Not many anticipated that.

Ed Rendell. It’s hard to think of a Hillary Clinton surrogate who’s done a worse job this year than the former Governor. He’s praised Donald Trump, criticized the Clintons’ relationship to their Foundation and most infamously stated that there are “more ugly women in America than attractive women.” Then on Thursday, Rendell revealed that he agreed with Reince Priebus’ opinion that Hillary needs to “smile more”. The first priority for every surrogate is “Do no harm”, which makes it amazing that the Democrats have yet to give Rendell the hook.

Barack Obama. Presidents tend to either fade away or finish strong. Poll numbers suggest the latter is the case for the Oval Office’s current occupant. On Monday, the latest Morning Call/Muhlenberg poll showed Obama with a 53% approval rating in PA. As a result, we’re likely to see more campaign appearances and ads from the President and the First Lady. The Keystone State may end up being the key to whether Pres. Obama can secure his legacy by passing the baton to his chosen successor.

Brian Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick, younger brother of the retiring incumbent, is the GOP nominee in the commonwealth’s most competitive congressional race. So it must’ve been heartening when an internal poll showed him with a 12-point advantage over Democratic nominee Steve Santarsiero. Fitzpatrick then got a helping hand from the NRCC, who went negative and allowed the candidate to skirt his no negativity pledge. Finally, he secured the endorsement of two local lodges of the Fraternal Order of Police yesterday.

Eric Papenfuse. We’ll be giving the Harrisburg Mayor a down arrow every week until he lifts his ridiculous ban of PennLive. Somehow, this has now extended to week fifteen.

The tweet of the week goes to Nancy Phillips of the Inquirer, who was present when Trump chose Geno’s over Pat’s.