(WHTM) – While Democrat John Fetterman holds a strong lead over Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race, the Pennsylvania Governor race is much closer in the early days of the race.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic nominee, holds only a 4-point lead over his far-right Republican rival, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, with just under 13 percent of voters remaining undecided in the race in the newest USA Today Network/Suffolk University poll.
That puts Shapiro’s advantage over Mastriano within the poll’s 4.4% margin of error.
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Mastriano is also entering the general election campaign with stronger support among GOP voters than Oz. Eighty-three percent of Republicans say they are backing him, while nearly as many Democrats – 82 percent – are supporting Shapiro.
Nearly half of Shapiro’s supporters (48.6%) have a college degree or a higher education degree, but Mastriano’s support was broadly spread out with 20.89% having just a high school degree, 22.3% having some college experience, and 23.88% being college graduates.
More than 56% of Mastriano’s supporters are men and the same percentage of women support Shapiro.
Thirty-seven percent of voters were unfavorable of Mastriano and 36% were favorable, while the remaining 27% either never heard of him or were undecided.
Opinions of the candidates are diverse across the commonwealth with Shapiro having majority support in Philadelphia and the southwest while Mastriano has a strong lead in central Pennsylvania. Support is within the margin of error in the northwest and northeast.
Shapiro has a commanding lead among the 18-35-year-old voters with 60% support to Mastriano’s 21%, while Mastriano leads Among the 45-54-year-old voters.
Mastriano has only 5% support from African-American voters to Shapiro’s 68%, and Mastriano has just a three-point lead among white voters.
Fifty-eight percent of Mastriano supporters say the economy and corruption are the most important issues in the Governor race, while Shapiro’s supporters believe gun control and abortion are the most important issues.
The USA Today Network/Suffolk University poll surveyed 500 likely general election voters in Pennsylvania from June 10-13. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.