Is the anti-incumbent fervor for real?

And if so, does it run deep enough to oust a congressman who most veteran political observers believe is among the safest in the land — Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts?

Democrat Lois Herr's campaign believes so, and says it has the proof.

A poll paid for by Herr shows Pitts leading by 9 percentage points with five months until the election, a margin that would be his slimmest in seven re-election campaigns.

The survey of 600 frequent voters, conducted by the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling last week, also found more people feel it's time to "give someone else a chance" rather than elect Pitts to an eighth term in the House.

"There is an anti-incumbent sentiment sweeping the country right now, and even long-time office holders like Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Pitts … are not immune to it," poll director Tom Jensen wrote.

The Herr campaign, which provided the poll and details of its methodology to this newspaper on Wednesday, portrayed the findings as encouraging to the challenger.

"As Lois Herr really gets her message out, she's going to become more and more known," said campaign manager Greg Paulson, "and that 9 percent is going to disappear."

But a spokesman for the Pitts campaign, Gabe Neville, said, "Even this Democratic poll shows that half of people who know who Lois is don't like her views. The fact that she is to the left of even Nancy Pelosi on key issues like health care is certainly the reason.

"There is a strong anti-incumbent mood in the country. CBS reports a 15 percent job-approval rating for Congress," Neville said. "This poll shows Joe Pitts with a significantly better job-approval and re-election ratings than you will find in most other congressional districts. Joe Pitts' record of focusing on jobs — and while rejecting earmarks, bailouts and deficits — will lead to a significant margin of victory in November."

Jensen acknowledges that most of his Raleigh, N.C.-based Public Policy Polling's clients are Democrats — "We are a Democratic polling outfit," he said — but added that the firm's methodology is soundly nonpartisan.

"We have a very strong record of providing fair results," Jensen said. "We're not putting something out just to help Democrats."

Jensen pointed to PPP's polling of the May 18 special election in the 12th Congressional District. Democrat Mark S. Critz easily defeated Republican Tim Burns for the late U.S. Rep. John Murtha's seat.

Critz won 53 percent to Burns' 45 percent. But a PPP poll released the day before the election showed Burns up by 1 point, 48 percent to 47 percent. "We actually overestimated the Republican," Jensen said.

Jensen said the 600 respondents in the Pitts-Herr poll were voters who had cast ballots in at least one of the last three general elections, and that the results were weighted for gender and age to accurately portray the district's demographics.

Also, 51 percent were Republicans, 38 percent were Democrats and 11 percent were independents — closely approximating the makeup of the 16th Congressional District. (In fact, only 49.3 percent of voters are Republicans and about 36 percent are Democrats.)

Jensen wrote the questions himself.

According to the poll, Pitts is leading Herr 46 percent to 37 percent, and the margin of error is 4 points.

Herr has run for the seat twice before, in 2004 and 2006, but 61 percent of voters don't have an opinion about Herr or have never heard of her, the poll found. She hopes to change that by spending some of the $225,000 she's raised so far on TV ads after Labor Day.

The incumbent's margin, according to the poll, is half that of his 18-point win against Herr four years ago, and fewer than half of those surveyed — 43 percent — approved of Pitts' job performance, according to the poll.

The findings underscore a gradual erosion of the Republican's margins since the congressional boundaries were redrawn to include Reading. The 16th district is not nearly as solid red as it had been before the 2002 redistricting.

In 2000, the last election before the new districts came into being, Pitts earned a third term after beating Democratic Robert S. Yorczyk by 34 points. Pitts beat Herr in 2006 by 18 percent, and Democrat Bruce Slater by 17 points in 2008.

G. Terry Madonna, a veteran pollster and director of Franklin & Marshall College's Center for Politics and Public Affairs, agrees that politicians seeking re-election this year are facing a tougher climate.

"It's generally understood this is going to be a tough year for incumbents," he said. "But the national scorekeepers all still indicate the 16th Congressional District as safely Republican."

CQ Politics, a publication of Congressional Quarterly, rates this race as "safe," meaning the incumbent party is "virtually certain to win the seat." Roll Call scores it the same way. The Cook Political Report has called it "solid Republican," while noting the district's GOP influence has slipped in recent years.

He noted that, to the extent that this election is a referendum on President Barack Obama's job performance, Democratic incumbents will face a tougher time of it this year than Republican incumbents — particularly in a House district where his agenda is not popular.

Another important point: The enthusiasm gap between Republican voters and Democratic voters. "Democrats are much less enthusiastic about this fall election," said Madonna. "That's an important point."

In the May 18 primary, for example, only 18 percent of the registered Democrats in Lancaster County went to the polls despite the hotly contested U.S. Senate contest between Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak. On the Republican side, 27 percent of voters went to the polls.

Statewide, 27 percent of Republicans voted in the primary compared to 23 percent of Democrats.

tmurse@lnpnews.com