United Liberty

With nearly every poll since June showing Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) trailing Pat Toomey in the United States Senate race, there is speculation that DSCC may be pulling out of Pennsylvania:

According to a source in Pennsylvania who tracks television advertising by political campaigns, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee bought only $260,000 in TV ads this week in Pennsylvania—about a 50 percent drop from the $500,000 or more the DSCC has been spending on TV ads each week for the past five weeks in the state.

The DSCC’s decision to scale back its ad campaign in Pennsylvania is likely due to the fact that Democrats are now being forced to spend money on other competitive races in states like West Virginia.

According to the source in Pennsylvania, the DSCC has purchased TV ads for the coming week only in the Pittsburgh media market, where Democrats are facing particularly bad poll numbers. Pro-Toomey groups will be heavily outspending Sestak and Senate Democrats this week, says our source: “Sestak plus DSCC is smaller in every market, except Pittsburgh, than Toomey plus the Club for Growth plus American Crossroads.”

The DSCC’s nearly $3 million ad campaign over the past five weeks hasn’t done much to budge poll numbers in the Keystone state. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Toomey’s lead over Sestak has been fairly stable during that time, with Toomey holding anywhere from a 6 to 8 point lead over Sestak. Toomey’s current lead over Sestak in the RCP average of polls is 6.5 points.

Really, the only time Sestak led in this race against was in his post-primary bump back in May. Polls in the last two weeks show Toomey, who has been successful in portraying his opponent as a liberal and tying him to Barack Obama, his economic policies and ObamaCare, with anywhere from a 3 to 9 point lead, including a substantial lead among independents.