A new Franklin and Marshall College survey of registered voters in Pennsylvania’s 10th District finds insurrectionist MAGA Congressman Scott Perry leading Dem challenger Janelle Stelson 45 to 44 percent overall, but also splits the sample on which respondents answered after Perry’s Orange Allah was convicted on 34 felony counts in Manhattan last week: Perry 49 – Stelson 42 before and Stelson 47 – Perry 39 afterward. In the same sample overall, Trump leads Biden 44 to 38 percent with Brainworms in third at 10 percent, but splitting again it’s Trump 47, Biden 36, Kennedy 8 percent pre-verdict, Biden and Trump tied at 40 with Kennedy up to 13 percent post-verdict.

Polling expert Adam Carlson urged libs to keep it in their pants, writing “the post-verdict respondents could just inherently be more Democratic leaning – either by chance (happens all the time) or because they were especially excited to participate in a poll right after the verdict,” which we guess is possible but one could easily say something similar about MAGA respondents overall this cycle, that their “enthusiasm” is artificially inflating Trump and Republicans’ numbers and why you see such wide gaps between mainstream pollsters. Another problem with that analysis: Would these Trump-to-RFK Jr defectors necessarily be “especially excited” and go out of their way to tell a pollster that they’re throwing away their vote now that Donald gave them an excuse to do so?

There are better reasons to dismiss this poll if one’s inclined to so, even if it’s by the well-regarded Pennsylvania outfit Franklin and Marshall, like the 6.1 percent margin of error and the small sample sizes at 392 overall split by 225 pre-verdict to 167 post-verdict. We need more time and data to see what the verdict’s impact is going to be on the presidential race and down-ballot. But the shift from Trump to Brainworms in a red district is notable and worth keeping an eye on.