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Despite Corbett's lead in fund-raising, Pa. governor's race tightens

With polls showing a tightening race and nasty ads bombarding TV screens, Republican Tom Corbett holds a large financial edge over Democrat Dan Onorato as the governor's race nears its close.

Tom Corbett raised $6.3 million in last five weeks.
Tom Corbett raised $6.3 million in last five weeks.Read more

With polls showing a tightening race and nasty ads bombarding TV screens, Republican Tom Corbett holds a large financial edge over Democrat Dan Onorato as the governor's race nears its close.

Reports released Friday showed that Corbett had more than twice the money that Onorato had in his war chest as of late last week.

Still holding the lead in voter surveys, but by a declining margin, Corbett reported to the Pennsylvania Department of State that he had raised $6.3 million in a five-week period from Sept. 19 to Oct. 18.

Corbett, the state attorney general, said he still had $5.3 million in the bank for a final round of TV ads and his get-out-the vote efforts on Nov. 2.

Onorato reported raising $3.3 million during the same period, and said he had $2 million left to spend.

All together, since last year, the two candidates have raised a combined $41 million - $22 million for Corbett; $19 million for Onorato.

The state has no caps on donations from individuals or political action committees.

In 2002, in the last open-seat election for governor, Democratic victor Ed Rendell raised a record $42 million, and his GOP opponent, Mike Fisher, raised $14 million.

In line with other recent polls, a survey released Friday by Quinnipiac University found that, after ignoring the governor's race for months, Democrats were finally beginning to tune in. Republicans had been hyped up all along.

A Quinnipiac survey of 1,046 likely voters found Corbett leading by 5 percentage points, 49 to 44. This compared to a 15-point advantage that Corbett held in the Connecticut school's previous poll, released Sept. 21.

The poll had a stated error rate of plus or minus 3 points.

"As we get closer to Election Day, Democrats are showing more interest in voting. This is often the case in off-year elections, and that makes this a more competitive race," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

"The governor's race has tightened; but with 11 days to go, the question is whether this is the beginning of a last-minute comeback, or just Democrats coming home to make the race close," Brown said.

Open-seat governors' races in Pennsylvania are typically close. After eight years, Rendell is stepping aside. No outgoing Pennsylvania governor has been succeeded by a member of his own party since the state Constitution was changed in 1968 to permit a governor to serve two terms.

Most of the money taken in by the candidates is going right back out the door to pay for TV commercials that are becoming increasingly nasty - and truth-stretching - as Election Day nears.

The Corbett camp was incensed Friday about a 30-second Onorato ad that says: "Warning for Pennsylvania seniors: Tom Corbett's budget plan might negatively impact you."

It goes on to suggest that Corbett "could" cut Meals on Wheels, home health-care services, Alzheimer's disease research, and funding for senior centers.

The key words here are might and could. Corbett has not said he plans to do anything of these things.

He has said that when it comes to reducing the billions of dollars in budget deficits the state faces in coming years, "everything is on the table" and that cuts would be "across the board."

But except for promising to get rid of legislative perks, cut state-car fleets, and end Medicaid fraud, he has been generally vague about what he would reduce or eliminate.

"This is the typical Democratic playbook - to scare seniors at the end [of a campaign] if you're down in the polls and trailing in money," said Kevin Harley, a Corbett spokesman.

A Corbett TV spot, also now on the air, takes a hard shot at Onorato by telling viewers: "Dan Onorato is trying to deceive you."

A narrator declares: "Dan Onorato is running a TV commercial claiming that he created over 9,000 jobs. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth."

In fact, Onorato has said only that he has "helped create" jobs.

He says he did that by developing policies as the Allegheny County executive that have fostered local economic growth.

Leslie Gromis Baker, a senior adviser to the Corbett campaign, defended the ad, saying Onorato can't really claim to have "created" a job unless he added a new staff member to his county payroll.

In fact, Onorato has cut his county payroll - a point of pride in his campaign.

Brian Herman, an Onorato spokesman, said: "Tom Corbett is doing a lot of things to distract from the fact that he has no economic record of his own."