Among those raising an eyebrow was the poll's director, Franklin and Marshall professor G. Terry Madonna.
"To be honest with you, the size of the lead surprised me," Madonna said Thursday. "It didn't shock me that Fitzpatrick was ahead."
The numbers are apt to fuel an already energized Republican base, said political science professor John Kennedy of West Chester University.
"Of all the Democratic members of Congress, Murphy is probably the number-one target," Kennedy said. "He's moved himself into the Democratic leadership in a short period of time. He is a person that might be a good candidate for higher office. But he's in a tough environment in a tough year."
The results were downplayed by the Murphy campaign, which called the poll unreliable based on past performance.
Two weeks before the 2006 election, the Murphy camp said, the same poll had Fitzpatrick leading by 9 percentage points. Murphy won by a fraction of a point.
"We know it's a tough race. We're not taking anything for granted," said Tim Persico, Murphy's campaign manager. "We're just not sure what Franklin and Marshall's numbers mean, because past polls didn't really bear out to be accurate at all."
Madonna defended the 2006 poll, saying it had made clear that Fitzpatrick's advantage was only 3 percentage points among voters who said they were certain to vote. That was well within the poll's margin of error. "We were acutely aware of the fluid environment that year," he said.
This time, Fitzpatrick's margin in the poll widens among respondents most likely to vote.
