Public Policy Polling (7/31-8/3, registered voters, 6/30-7/2 in parens):
Creigh Deeds (D): 37 (43)
Bob McDonnell (R): 51 (49)Jody Wagner (D): 34 (40)
Bill Bolling (R-inc): 48 (46)Steve Shannon (D): 32 (38)
Ken Cuccinelli (R): 45 (45)
(MoE: ±4.1%)
Wow, these are scary ugly numbers all around. Tom Jensen has more:
The biggest problem hampering Deeds right now is a lack of enthusiasm among Democrats for coming out to vote this fall. Although Barack Obama took Virginia 52-46 last November, those planning to vote in this year’s election report having voted for John McCain by a margin of 52-41. Put another way, roughly 60% of people who voted for McCain last fall are planning to come out while only 42% of those who voted for Obama are. He probably needs to generate enough excitement around his candidacy to get out closer to 55% of those Obama voters if he’s going to win.
There are some signs within the poll that Deeds’ standing is likely to improve. For instance two of the largest groups of undecided voters are African Americans and those under 30, both groups that were very favorable to Barack Obama last year. He has a 64-3 lead with blacks and seems likely to pick up most of the undecideds as the election comes closer.
Still it’s clear there’s a lot of work to do. For instance his lead in northern Virginia is only 51-44 and among all voters describing themselves as suburbanites he trails McDonnell 51-37. By comparison a PPP survey right before the election last year showed Obama winning those folks 58-38, meaning at this point there’s basically a 34 point turnaround with those voters.
As Jensen says, it’s still too early to count Deeds out, but this looks to be the most challenging gubernatorial election for Democrats in Virginia in several cycles. Even during the 2005 campaign, which was no walk in the park for Tim Kaine, Republicans never enjoyed a lead this big. Democrats have good reason to be very concerned here.
Discussion is already underway in Conspiracy’s diary.
And this is from a Democratic polling firm. Also, Monmouth University found Christie with a 14 pt lead against Corzine in their newest poll- http://www.monmouth.edu/pollin…
I find it rediculous that Bob McDonnell could get elected only because so many citizens of Virginia don’t feel like going to the polls to vote on election day. If McDonnell gets elected in November and the people of Virginia dont like what he does they only have themselves to blame for not coming out and voting. One more thing, Douglas Wilder needs to stop being arrogant and just come out and endorse and help him get elected, I don’t understand what Wilder’s problem is?
Based on the chatter on the interwebs, I’m not surprised. This Virginia blog hammers Deeds for putting all his attention on rural voters and doing little to nothing to convince urbanites to pay any attention to the race. This isn’t Nancy Pfotenhauer’s Virginia; it’s very important that he keeps enthusiasm up in NoVa (and hell, even the Southeast).
Now, it’s still sorta early, and the aforementioned blog is the first to point out that he could just be trying to lock down the rural vote now and then he’ll blitz the urban areas in the fall, in which case he should see an increase in polling once he gets around to hanging out in places that aren’t Southwestern VA.
…if you live here and you’re a voter who doesn’t care about politics, you might not be surprised if someone told you Deeds quit and McDonnell is running unopposed. THAT’S how INVISIBLE Deeds is up in NoVA.
Deeds is ignoring the Democratic base, apparently taking for granted we’ll all just show up to vote, and it’s showing up in the public polling. What James L. neglected to mention in his diary is that this PPP poll exactly matches the SUSA poll a few days ago that showed McDonnell up 55-40. Both these polls show the same thing: LOTS of Obama voters, especially self-identified liberals but also some Obama-voting moderates, are not likely to vote.
I dissed the SUSA poll for its turnout model when it came out, but now I can’t do that, it’s legitimized.
Deeds is fucking up completely, and what pisses me off even further is that he’s fucking up the turnout model so that every downballot Democrat gets killed.
If Deeds doesn’t turn this around in a hurry, if he ends up getting blown out and takes down a lot of Dems with him, he will be forever and rightly remembered angrily by Democrats. It really will reinforce that we don’t want country conservatives as our nominees, when a lot of us liberals, myself included, voted for Deeds in the first place because we thought that would be a good statewide profile.
Which is correct?
such as it is, is that most of the undecideds are voters that he should pick up, particularly black voters (3% go for McDonnell! Deeds doesn’t have a problem with African Americans, McDonnell does!). I think the ceiling in this race for either candidate is about 55% of the vote, so McDonnell doesn’t have much room to expand. He has definitely solidified his base, which is something Deeds needs to get working on ASAP.