A shifting outlook as Election Day nears

This piece was originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer's Currents.

This week's topic comes from a reader: With the polls being what they are, how will candidates for governor - and others - build and maintain momentum and enthusiasm in order to get voters to the polls?

Novak: By now, the campaigns have identified their strengths, weaknesses, and what messages are resonating. Right now, the tax message is resonating among Republicans. We've seen it in the improvement of Gov. Corbett's numbers in the latest Quinnipiac poll. That has to be a point of motivation. To use a football analogy, if Corbett scores a touchdown each week, he is suddenly into the margin of error. Then it becomes the role of the state parties and the national campaign organizations to turn out the voters. They have to use any good news and good internal polling to motivate not only the electorate, but also the campaign workers.

Rooney: We couldn't have two more dramatic examples of trying to manage expectations in this election cycle than this race for governor. On one hand, there is the unprecedented position Corbett finds himself in, likely to go down in history as the only governor to lose reelection. On the other hand, we have an insurgent candidate in Democrat Tom Wolf, who maintains a substantial lead across the board. The challenge for Wolf and the campaign is to convince Democrats that this isn't over.

Novak: Corbett has to pound away at the tax issue. It's easy for Wolf to say he will raise taxes on gas and oil companies, but you can't pay for the $4 billion of plans he has with just an extraction tax. Corbett needs to convince voters that Wolf is the "tax man cometh" and will raise taxes on everyone. That will motivate the undecided camp toward Corbett and squishy Wolf voters away from Wolf. Other candidates on this ballot need to make voters focus on their own races. The people running for Congress have a whole different subset of issues that they can run on and a whole different voter sentiment that's going to help them. Even the state candidates who are focused on state issues are running their own races right now.

Rooney: The Corbett campaign needs to find something with some traction among some voters someplace in Pennsylvania. They have spent more than $20 million running through a litany of issues, and they have concocted this tax issue that they sense has legs. The problem as we get closer to Election Day is that there is a natural gravitational pull among voters called "coming home." Democrats and Republicans "come home" to their party in the remaining weeks of any race, and we are going to see that movement. As for the "tax issue," the truth is Wolf's policies matter, but the specificity that Corbett is calling for is hypocritical. Corbett has been at this for over 31/2 years and he's taken Pennsylvania from rankings near the top to the bottom in terms of job creation. So his attacks that the sky is going to fall and the Earth is no longer going to spin on its axis if Wolf is elected ring hollow. Unfortunately for them, Corbett's record is what's at hand and going to be decided in November.

Novak: Each side is going to spin those job numbers the way it chooses. Corbett can say the state started with an unemployment rate of 8 percent-plus and we are now under 6 percent. The Wolf campaign will spin it the way T.J. did. The advantage and opportunity Republicans have is an unpopular federal government and unpopular president. Obama and his policies are on this ballot, whether you see them there or not. Corbett and every other Republican on the ballot has to use this rallying cry to, as T.J. said, bring them home.

Rooney: They want you to focus on ObamaCare. The problem is, it's not going to work. This is an election for governor. Races for governor are different than races for president. This election for governor will be decided on Harrisburg-based issues, which tend to be far more localized and involve things that aren't ObamaCare. People can make that differentiation. What is going to matter in these remaining days is keeping the interest within the base and keeping the urgency front and center. That's why high-profile surrogates like Hillary Clinton are coming to Pennsylvania. We'll see those kinds of things continue to happen.

Novak: Each side has issues that will motivate the loyal niche within its base. How each political party activates those groups, especially those one- or two-issue voters - will play around the edges of this race. In 1994, when I was party chairman in Chester County, we had a situation like this, where the federal government and then-President Bill Clinton had some issues with popularity. The last week of that campaign, signs were posed all across Chester County that said, "Send the White House a message: Vote Republican." It may not be that simplistic this time, but when Republicans tap into and use that sentiment, they are giving their base another reason to vote.

Rooney: The unfortunate reality for the Corbett campaign is that when you look at where voters are and what they are thinking, it's that this Democrat is a different kind of Democrat and has a different kind of story that is resonating. It's not just with Democrats, but with people and in places you wouldn't normally expect a Democrat to do well. So, the challenge for the Wolf campaign is two-fold: Maintain the momentum he has with good events that stir up the base in the cities and the surrounding suburbs, and also be very smart and very diligent about identifying those people who are in nontraditional Democratic strongholds. Wolf's people will be talking to those voters a lot in the coming days, which will keep their momentum moving ahead.