{"id":131492,"date":"2026-03-06T18:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T18:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/131492\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T18:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T18:02:08","slug":"franklin-and-marshall-poll-asks-pa-voters-about-biggest-issues-personal-finances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/131492\/","title":{"rendered":"Franklin and Marshall Poll asks Pa. voters about biggest issues, personal finances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New poll asks Pa. voters about biggest issues, personal finances<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTHE WEEKEND COMING UP IN MY FULL FORECAST. ALL RIGHT. THANKS, CHRISTINE. THIS MORNING NEW THIS MORNING WE HAVE THE RESULTS OF THE LATEST FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE POLL. THESE RESULTS JUST PUBLISHED THIS MORNING. THE POLL ASKED PENNSYLVANIA VOTERS HOW YOU\u2019RE FEELING ABOUT THE ECONOMY. FEDERAL AND STATE POLITICS AND ISSUES OF THE DAY, INCLUDING ICE ENFORCEMENT AND DEMOCRACY. THE POLL IS POSTED ON WGAL.COM. IF YOU WANT TO CHECK OUT ALL THE QUESTIONS RIGHT NOW, THOUGH, WE\u2019LL DIVE INTO THE STATE NUMBERS THAT WE\u2019RE ASKED. THE POLL ASKED VOTERS IN PENNSYLVANIA IF THE STATE IS HEADING IN THE RIGHT OR THE WRONG DIRECTION. NOW, A MAJORITY OF VOTERS HAS NOT SAID THAT THE STATE IS GOING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION FOR AT LEAST SIX YEARS. SO THE VIEW GENERALLY IS QUITE PESSIMISTIC ABOUT THIS. RIGHT NOW, THE RIGHT TRACK, 39%, THE WRONG TRACK, 44%, THE RIGHT TRACK NUMBER IS UP TWO POINTS. SINCE THIS POLL WAS ASKED LAST IN OCTOBER, BUT DOWN THREE POINTS FROM A YEAR PRIOR. SO IS THAT MOOD WEIGHING NOW ON GOVERNOR SHAPIRO\u2019S APPROVAL NUMBERS AMONG VOTERS YOU SEE HERE? NOT REALLY. 50% SAY THAT THE GOVERNOR IS DOING AN EXCELLENT OR GOOD JOB, 44% SAYING HE\u2019S DOING A FAIR OR POOR JOB. THAT NUMBER THAT SPLIT FAIRLY CONSISTENT THROUGHOUT SHAPIRO\u2019S TIME AS GOVERNOR. AND WITH THOSE NUMBERS IN MIND, IF THE ELECTION TO BE THE NEXT GOVERNOR HELD UP, THAT WE\u2019RE EXPECTING THE MATCHUP BETWEEN GOVERNOR SHAPIRO AND THE STATE TREASURER, STACY GARRITY, AGAIN, THE PRIMARY HASN\u2019T EVEN HAPPENED YET. BUT THESE ARE THE TWO MAIN CANDIDATES HERE. SHAPIRO LEADING BY 20 POINTS AMONG THIS POLL, 48 TO 28%. NOW HE DOESN\u2019T HIT THE 50% MARK, AND 24% OF VOTERS SAID THAT THEY WOULD EITHER VOTE FOR SOMEBODY ELSE OR THEY DON\u2019T KNOW WHO THEY WOULD VOTE FOR. BUT AT LEAST THIS GIVES US A SNAPSHOT, A\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>New poll asks Pa. voters about biggest issues, personal finances<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769026991_958_wgal.png\" class=\"lazyload lazyload-in-view branding\" alt=\"WGAL logo\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tUpdated: 12:39 PM EST Mar 6, 2026\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wgal.com\/article\/hearst-television-news-policy-statements\/14471973\" class=\"editorial-standards border-left\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Editorial Standards \u24d8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe new Franklin and Marshall Poll asked Pennsylvanians what the biggest issues are right now and how they feel about their personal finances.F&amp;M Poll results: Big issuesTop issue: The economy is voters&#8217; top concern, driven by issues like jobs, housing costs, and higher gas and utility prices.Among voters citing economic problems, Democrats lead Republicans on who can handle it best: 45 to 25 percent.F&amp;M Poll results: Personal financesPersonal finances:36 percent say they\u2019re worse off financially than a year ago, 20 percent say they&#8217;re better off.More expect to be worse off (25 percent) financially next year than better off (23 percent).The poll sampled 353 Democrats, 347 Republicans and 134 independents from Feb. 18 through March 1.Link: Full Franklin &amp; Marshall College Poll March 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tLANCASTER, Pa. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The new Franklin and Marshall Poll asked Pennsylvanians what the biggest issues are right now and how they feel about their personal finances.<\/p>\n<p>F&amp;M Poll results: Big issues<\/p>\n<p>Top issue: The economy is voters&#8217; top concern, driven by issues like jobs, housing costs, and higher gas and utility prices.<\/p>\n<p>Among voters citing economic problems, Democrats lead Republicans on who can handle it best: 45 to 25 percent.F&amp;M Poll results: Personal finances<\/p>\n<p>Personal finances:<\/p>\n<p>36 percent say they\u2019re worse off financially than a year ago, 20 percent say they&#8217;re better off.More expect to be worse off (25 percent) financially next year than better off (23 percent).<\/p>\n<p>The poll sampled 353 Democrats, 347 Republicans and 134 independents from Feb. 18 through March 1.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/6f\/65\/6f6547c9-4c4e-45a8-b12e-56fdcab002c9\/content\/files\/2026\/03\/KEYMAR26_Topline-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Link: Full Franklin &amp; Marshall College Poll March 2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New poll asks Pa. voters about biggest issues, personal finances THE WEEKEND COMING UP IN MY FULL FORECAST.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61027,2258,61029,2807,53751,1820,61028,60500,28,30,29,31918,12449,13204,5019,61031,61030,78],"class_list":{"0":"post-131492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-big-issue","9":"tag-democrats","10":"tag-economic-problem","11":"tag-franklin","12":"tag-housing-cost","13":"tag-job","14":"tag-marshall-poll","15":"tag-pa-voter","16":"tag-pennsylvania","17":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","18":"tag-pennsylvania-news","19":"tag-percent","20":"tag-personal-finance","21":"tag-poll","22":"tag-republicans","23":"tag-top-concern","24":"tag-utility-price","25":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}