Uncomfortable town hall meetings are just the tip of the iceberg for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. He now trails Republican Pat Toomey by double digits in his bid for reelection next year and is viewed unfavorably by a majority of the state’s voters.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Pennsylvania voters shows 48% would vote for Toomey if the election were held today. Just 36% would vote for Specter while four percent (4%) prefer a third option, and 12% are not sure.

These figures reflect a dramatic reversal since June. At that time, before the public health care debate began, Specter led Toomey by eleven.

Just 43% now have a favorable opinion of Specter while 54% offer an unfavorable assessment of the longtime GOP senator who became a Democrat rather than face Toomey in a party primary. Those numbers have reversed since June when 53% had a favorable opinion of him.

The current figures include 15% with a Very Favorable opinion of Specter and 36% with a Very Unfavorable view.

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Specter has found himself front and center in the health care debate just as support for the reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to new lows nationwide. In Pennsylvania, 42% of voters support the plan while 53% are opposed.

Those who like the congressional health care plan favor Specter 70% to nine percent (9%) for Toomey. Those who are against the legislative effort oppose Specter and give Toomey an 82% to nine percent (9%) advantage.

If Congressman Joe Sestak is the Democratic nominee instead of Specter, Toomey still leads but by a smaller margin. The polling shows 43% for Toomey and 35% for Sestak. In June, Sestak had a six-point edge over Toomey.

The most recent polling was conducted during a week in which Specter held some contentious town hall meetings on the health care issue. It is significant both that Toomey now leads Specter and that Sestak outperforms the incumbent in a general election match-up.

Toomey is viewed favorably by 54%, Sestak by 40%. However, opinions of both men are quite soft. Just 13% have a Very Favorable opinion of Toomey, and only eight percent (8%) say the same about Sestak. On the negative side, 11% have a Very Unfavorable opinion of Toomey, and an identical number are that negative about Sestak.

Sestak trails Specter by 13 points in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Specter, a longtime GOP senator, switched parties and became a Democrat in April just after a Rasmussen Reports poll in the state showed him trailing Toomey by 21 points in a likely Republican Senate Primary match-up. Specter’s team initially dismissed the poll but later acknowledged that one of the reasons he changed parties was a fear that he might lose his own party’s nomination.

Particularly damaging to Specter among Pennsylvania Republicans was his vote for President Obama’s economic stimulus plan, one of only three cast by Republicans for it.

Eighty percent (80%) of Republican voters now favor Toomey in a match-up with Specter, up from 68% two months ago. Specter draws 61% of the Democratic vote, down from 74% in June.

As part of the effort to coax Specter into switching parties to move Democrats closer to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, both the president and Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Edward Rendell, endorsed Specter as the party’s Senate nominee in 2010. They also promised to campaign for him. Sestak, angry like many Democrats in the state about a longtime Republican suddenly becoming the Democratic candidate for Senate, is challenging Specter for the nomination over the objections of his party's leadership.

Just 39% of Pennsylvania voters now approve of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s job performance, down from 53% in June.

Fifty-one percent (51%) approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance, down from 60%. His Pennsylvania numbers are similar to the national findings in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

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