Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, the Democratic candidate for governor, continued to pound Attorney General Tom Corbett on Tuesday, charging that the Republican's statement that jobless benefits lead some workers to choose unemployment shows that he "simply doesn't get it."

Mr. Onorato spoke as a new poll showed that he continues to trail Mr. Corbett, 44 percent to 37 percent. Mr. Onorato has been relentless in trying to put his rival on the defensive over his apparent assertion last week that the state's jobless rate was boosted by workers who won't accept jobs until their unemployment compensation payments expire. A spokesman for Mr. Corbett said Monday that the attorney general was merely relaying the anecdotal observations of some employers he had encountered.

After releasing a critical statement quick on the heels of the remarks, Mr. Onorato blasted them again at a Harrisburg news conference Monday before returning to the assault at a Tuesday appearance at the Community College of Allegheny County. He will try to keep the spotlight on the issue today, traveling to Philadelphia for yet another news conference on Mr. Corbett's observations.

"He simply doesn't get it; he doesn't understand what's going on out there," Mr. Onorato said of the economic conditions under which the state's unemployment rate has climbed above 9 percent.

A campaign spokesman said that Mr. Corbett was not available for comment Tuesday, but the news service Capitolwire reported an interview in which the GOP candidate rebutted the wave of criticism he has received from Democrats.

"I don't mean to be insensitive -- that certainly wasn't the intention," Mr. Corbett told Capitolwire. "I'm not insensitive to it. I know that the people of Pennsylvania, we've got a 9.1 percent unemployment rate. We've got to improve that. I think I've talked about the need to improve it by getting more jobs to Pennsylvania, by keeping businesses in Pennsylvania, by reducing the cost of taxes in Pennsylvania, of doing business in Pennsylvania."

Despite Mr. Corbett's controversial statement, a plurality of voters surveyed by Quinnipiac University viewed him as the candidate better able to fix the state's economy. The result on that question was 44 percent to 32 percent. The telephone poll of 1,367 Pennsylvania voters was conducted during the six days that ended Sunday, meaning that most of the interviews were conducted before the reports of Mr. Corbett's remarks surfaced on Friday. The sampling error margin is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

At 45 percent to 31 percent, the respondents also saw the Republican as the candidate better able to reform Harrisburg.

The poll findings suggest some of the advantages Mr. Corbett holds roughly four months before the Nov. 2 election. He comfortably won re-election as attorney general in the face of the Democratic tide of 2008. On the national level, a new Washington Post/ABC poll released Tuesday reinforced the notion that the tide will be with GOP candidates this fall as the popularity of President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress continues to erode.

The Corbett office's prosecutions of legislative figures will continue to provide opportunities to reinforce his image as a corruption fighter at a time when state lawmakers are afflicted by overwhelmingly negative approval ratings.

But the Republican's post-primary road has hit several bumps. Just as Mr. Onorato has aggressively exploited Mr. Corbett's remarks on unemployment, the Democratic nominee did his best to fan an earlier controversy that arose when the attorney general's office sought a subpoena to identify anonymous Internet critics of Mr. Corbett. Prosecutors said the request was relevant to the sentencing of one of the defendants in the office's ongoing Bonusgate probe. While Mr. Corbett defended the move to identify individuals who had posted critical Twitter messages, his office eventually withdrew the subpoena.

That episode, however, gave Mr. Onorato another opportunity to criticize his opponent as he repeatedly characterized it as an "outrageous" effort to quash free speech.

According to the new Quinnipiac findings, Mr. Corbett continues to enjoy somewhat stronger approval ratings than his rival, although relatively high "don't know" responses for both suggest the opportunity for movement in the race.

Forty-four percent of the voters surveyed said they had a favorable view of Mr. Corbett and just 11 percent said they had an unfavorable view. For Mr. Onorato, the numbers were: favorable, 31 percent and unfavorable, 16 percent.

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