Strength of opposition ...

So, to me, the interesting thing about the opposition to the Mayor is the strength of it. I'm not saying that there is an anti-Ravenstahl majority out there, rather that the anti-Ravenstahl minority seems fierce. There are a few ardent supporters of the Mayor, such as Matt H and a few other anonymous commenter's. But the people who speak up against the Mayor seem very specific and determined. For example, there was a phone in poll on KDKA radio that I gather that ran 67% for DeSantis. There were the three letters in the Sunday's PG about the Tailgate affair. Of course, there is near universal Burghospree disapproval of Ravenstahl, but I wouldn't necessarily credit that.

What's amusing is that I remember that Bill Peduto had talked about the kind of negative poll numbers that would have been generated by attacking Ravenstahl. But the Mayor has created a near continuous series of attacks on himself. Just recently between the Northside meeting, asking DeSantis to leave a forum and then the Tailgate thing, the Mayor has found himself explaining situations nearly continuously. If Peduto had stayed in the race, I wonder if maybe the Democrats might want to switch their endorsement at some point. You know, the way things have been going.

Anyway, the anecdotal evidence is that those who oppose the Mayor are pretty firm in their position. Phone polls are notoriously unreliable, although they might be a decent indicator of who is going to vote. So maybe one hundred KDKA listeners are firmly going to vote for DeSantis. Maybe the radio voters and the letter writers are all republicans, but I don't think so. They have the feel of disillusioned democrats. Meanwhile the party faithful may be wondering what they have signed on for.

We will see how the upcoming debates go.