Obama to lend hand to Sestak

September 4, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

HARRISBURG

President Barack Obama is heading to Pennsylvania to help the Senate bid of Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak, whom Obama tried to defeat in the primary, the Sestak campaign said Friday.

The president will appear at a Sept. 20 fund-raising event in Philadelphia, his first appearance with Sestak as a Senate candidate.

“Joe is honored that the president will do an event with him while he is in Pennsylvania,” the campaign said in a statement. “They may have had their differences in the past, but they agree on the importance of having a pragmatic leader like Joe, who will fight for Pennsylvania’s working families, in the Senate.”

Sestak, a second-term congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs and a retired Navy admiral, appears to be trailing in the polls against Republican Pat Toomey, a businessman, former congressman and ex-president of the Washington-based free-market advocacy group Club for Growth.

A survey last week by Franklin & Marshall College showed Toomey ahead, with 40 percent of likely voters to Sestak’s 31 percent. The same poll showed that 63 percent of people believe Obama is doing a fair or poor job as president. The election is Nov. 2.

In the primary, Sestak defeated Obama-backed Sen. Arlen Specter, a longtime Republican who switched parties rather than face Toomey in a GOP primary.