Tag: Creigh Deeds

Survey USA for WDBJ 7 in Roanoke

Survey USA polled the Virginia Governor’s race again, and with less than three weeks to go, State Senator Creigh Deeds is surging.

Terry McAuliffe leads with 37%.  Deeds is now in second with 26%.  Former Delegate Brian Moran now sits in third place with 22%.

I think this is great news.  I’m rooting for Deeds–I thought he was very impressive in the debate I saw on C-SPAN, and think that he would be the strongest challenger against Attorney General Bob McDonnell.  He’s the only candidate who gained ground since the last SUSA poll, and now leads in Central Virginia.

Being the only candidate from Southern Virginia, I think Deeds can hold our margin down there.  I think he’ll be able to run up the score in NoVA, too–at least as much as he has to.  McAuliffe still seems like a wild-card, and I don’t see Moran pulling it out.  The primary is on June 9; the general in November.

This is certainly a race to watch.

http://www.deedsforvirginia.com/

http://www.terrymcauliffe.com/

http://www.brianmoran.com/

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (5/1-3, likely voters, late March in parens):

Terry McAuliffe (D): 30 (18)

Brian Moran (D): 20 (22)

Creigh Deeds (D): 14 (15)

Undecided: 36 (45)

(MoE: ± 4.1%)

This is a big jump for T-Mac from the last PPP poll, which actually had him trailing Moran. But this is now the second survey in a row (SUSA’s was the first) to show McAuliffe with a sizable lead. Still, there are a ton of undecideds and just a month left to go in the race – a lot can happen.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (4/6-8, registered voters):

Brian Moran (D): 24

Terry McAuliffe (D): 19

Creigh Deeds (D): 16

(MoE: ±5%)

Brian Moran (D): 36

Bob McDonnell (R): 37

Terry McAuliffe (D): 33

Bob McDonnell (R): 40

Creigh Deeds (D): 31

Bob McDonnell (R): 38

(MoE: ±4%)

Research 2000 polls the Virginia governor’s race for the first time, finding that ex-Delegate Brian Moran has a small advantage in the primary over former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. A recent PPP poll had Moran and McAuliffe tied, but gave Moran the momentum (McAuliffe had previously led), and found McAuliffe with higher negatives. That’s mirrored here: Moran’s favorables are 36/33 while McAuliffe is the only candidate in net negative territory at 35/36.

Moran fares slightly better in the general than the other Dems because of his solid base in northern Virginia (he used to represent Alexandria), winning NoVa against Bob McDonnell 49-21. McDonnell wins the rest of the state 43-31, though, and sports impressive favorables of 48/31. Once the Dem primary is over and the winner can aim his fire at McDonnell instead of the other Dems, though, maybe his negatives can get driven up. McDonnell’s support for the GOP-led House of Delegates’ decision to reject federal stimulus money for unemployment benefits provides a good opening.

Public Policy Polling (3/27-29, likely voters, 2/28-3/1 in parentheses):

Brian Moran (D): 22 (19)

Terry McAuliffe (D): 18 (21)

Creigh Deeds (D): 15 (14)

(MoE: 3.6%)

PPP takes its monthly look at the Democratic primary in the Virginia governor’s race. Ex-delegate Brian Moran and former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe have swapped places, with Moran moving into a small lead. Considering that nearly half the voters are still undecided, this looks more like normal fluctuation than a trend… although one item from the fine print suggests that McAuliffe’s negatives may be increasing. His favorable/unfavorable is 32/29, up from 31/24 last month. (Moran and Deeds are less-known but have more upside, at 34/15 and 31/12 respectively.) There’s no head-to-head poll against likely GOP nominee Robert McDonnell.

PPP also takes a look at the crowded Democratic primary for Lt. Governor, finding that 67% of voters are undecided. Among those who have decided, former Secretary of Finance Jody Wagner has a comfortable lead with 21%. Other candidates Jon Bowerbank, Pat Edmonson, and Michael Signer each poll at 4%.

• VA-Gov: PPP’s latest has McAulliffe 21, Moran 19 and Deeds 14 for the Dem gubernatorial primary. Last month it was 18-18-11. The election is three months off. (D)

• PA-Sen: An opening for Pat Toomey? Susquehanna has a new poll showing Snarlin’ Arlen’s re-elects at just 38% – and an awful 26% among Republicans. (D)

• TX-Gov: Tom Schieffer, a former State Rep. and Bush Ambassador to Australia, has announced that he’s forming an exploratory committee to seek the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Texas. When questioned by reporters, Schieffer says that he does not regret voting for Bush for Governor and President. A recent PPP poll has Kay Bailey Hutchison crushing Schieffer by a 54-30 margin, while incumbent Gov. Rick Perry leads Schieffer by only 45-35. (J)

• IN-Gov: Is Baron Hill getting ready for a 2012 gubernatorial campaign? There was some brief speculation that he might run in 2008, but of course that never panned out. (J)

• OR-Gov: This may be a tea leaf that Gordon Smith is passing on the 2010 governor’s race, or it may simply be a way to stay in the Beltway money loop for a year while laying groundwork, but Gordo is staying in DC and taking a “senior adviser” position (since he’s subject to the two-year lobbying ban) with prominent DC law/lobbying/soul-devouring firm Covington & Burling.

Rasmussen (2/4, likely voters, 12/4 in parentheses):

Creigh Deeds (D): 30 (39)

Robert McDonnell (R): 39 (39)

Some other candidate: 6 (4)

Brian Moran (D): 36 (41)

Robert McDonnell (R): 39 (37)

Some other candidate: 4 (5)

Terry McAuliffe (D): 35 (36)

Robert McDonnell (R): 42 (41)

Some other candidate: 3 (5)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rasmussen polls the Virginia governor’s race a second time, meaning we now have trendlines… and, frankly, they don’t look very appetizing. Ex-Del. Brian Moran led AG Robert McDonnell last time by 4, but now he’s trailing by 3, while Del. Creigh Deeds fell from a tie to a 9-point deficit.

Part of the problem here may be that, while McDonnell has long since consolidated Republican support, the three Dem contenders are in primary attack mode, driving their numbers down as they target each other. The numbers in the McAuliffe/McDonnell matchup don’t seem to have budged much, which suggests that McAuliffe may be doing the best job right now of the three of getting his message into the media… although that still doesn’t seem to translate into a good performance in the general matchup.

UPDATE (James L.): Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen weighs in:

I think the answer here is in the timing of the poll being conducted. It was done Wednesday night. McDonnell resigned as Attorney General Tuesday and that was all over local tv news casts Tuesday, and then all over the state’s newspapers on Wednesday. That level of exposure is unusual for a 24 hour media cycle this far out from November, and I bet it helped McDonnell to lead in the poll. I certainly don’t think there was any nefarious intent in the timing of the poll but that sort of thing does have an impact.

McAuliffe 18%

Moran 18%

Deeds 11%

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

Huge number of undecideds but check out the approvals.

“Moran has the best favorability marks from likely primary voters, with 34% having a positive opinion of him and just 10% viewing him negatively. McAuliffe is the most well known of the candidates, which cuts both ways. He has the second highest favorable rating, 30%, but also has easily the highest unfavorable rating at 23%. Deeds is the least well known of the trio with 67% of respondents having no opinion of him one way or the other.”

Looks like anything could happen here but I guess McAuliffe has the edge with his financial advantage. Does anybody actually think he could win in November? This is a genuine question and not rhetorical.

Last week’s Virginia Governor Democratic Primary Cattle Call

With only 129 days until Virginia’s June 9th Democratic gubernatorial primary, the race is in full swing. The good news for political junkies is that the race has been receiving a good deal of attention. For those looking for a fix, on Tuesday Public Policy Polling* will release head-to-head and favorability numbers for the Democratic Primary. Some people think that Tuesday’s Sharon Bulova result will be important. But it is an all hands on deck for all the campaigns and the only candidate trying to up the ante is Terry McAuliffe in his attempt to smudge the fact he hasn’t helped down ticket Commonwealth Democrats by glossing over with cash.

What’s happened in the last week?

Terry McAuliffe ~ Big week for Terry McAuliffe, but that is both a blessing and a curse. And that will be the story for as long as he hangs around. Terry McAuliffe can raise big money to put his face on TV, but what comes out of his mouth when he is in front of the camera inverts the principle that more media is better.

Terry McAuliffe Money Everyone knows Terry McAuliffe is best known for escalating transactional politics and thus will be able to raise big cash from interests who appreciate pay-to-play. The GOP is already salivating over what looks like a $25,000 of sketchiness. And the $350,000 Park Avenue event is likely to cause some trouble when the next finance reports are released on Tax Day and people see where their Wall Street bailout is going. Optics aren’t pretty:

McAuliffe then stated his case – business savvy to turnaround Virginia’s economic woes – to a crowd with a zero percentage of Virginia residents. Still, the cream of New York’s bundler society present at the dinner could be said to account for McAuliffe’s financial base.

Not a cool base, but he will have lots of money, which brings him to the problem that he’ll spend it putting his face on TV.

Terry McAuliffe on TV

The big money let McAuliffe air a Super Bowl ad, but does it help to brand his face on TV? Tim Craig noted:

And because he was a frequent guest on cable news programs as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, reams of footage could become fodder for a GOP advertising campaign. The Virginia GOP has compiled an extensive opposition research file on McAuliffe, GOP sources said.

Brian Moran ~ Picking p the endorsement of Dwight Jones was a major get, but again for Moran the big news was his big moves on the environment. This week, it was his Green Virginia Plan:

“Virginia can and must become a leader in renewable energy and get our economy moving,” said Moran, a former delegate from Alexandria who is one of three Democrats seeking the party’s nomination for governor.

“The time for leadership on this issue has come, and I’m committed to bold action. This plan will create tens of thousands of jobs in growing industries,” Moran said. “These investments will produce returns for years in the form of new technologies and new jobs.”

Bob Burnley, director of the Department of Environmental Quality under then-Gov. Mark R. Warner, endorsed Moran today and praised his environmental plan.

Creigh Deeds ~ While McAuliffe is putting his money on TV and Moran is again getting lots of earned media for his environmental consolidation, where is Deeds? Not only is he not making good moves, he is making mistakes. Again, he’s going to have to step it up to be more than a spoiler.

*The latest PPC poll in Ohio had no clue when it came to the electorate, so take it with a grain of salt.

Rasmussen (12/4, likely voters)

Creigh Deeds (D): 39

Robert McDonnell (R): 39

Some other candidate: 4

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Brian Moran (D): 41

Robert McDonnell (R): 37

Some other candidate: 5

Terry McAuliffe (D): 36

Robert McDonnell (R): 41

Some other candidate: 5

Rasmussen has polled the 2009 Virginia governor’s race, and every configuration points to a close contest. Attorney General Robert McDonnell seems to be locked in as the Republican candidate, but the Democratic field is very much up in the air, with three credible candidates in the mix: Rep. Creigh Deeds (who narrowly lost to McDonnell in the 2005 AG’s race), Rep. Brian Moran, and former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. In the three head-to-heads, Moran fares the best, beating McDonnell by 4, while the nationally-known McAuliffe fares the worst, losing by 5. There is no poll included of the Democratic primary.

Although Deeds ran for statewide office four years ago, this may be primarily a case of name recognition; Moran is from Alexandria, so voters throughout the DC media market are likely to be familiar with him, while Deeds is from rural Bath County in southwestern Virginia. This creates an interesting strategic question: nominate Deeds and try to put into play another whole region of the state that otherwise wouldn’t be (even if it’s one that’s vote-poor and shrinking), or nominate Moran and try to maximize Dem performance in northern Virginia, which is by far the biggest concentration of Democratic strength (but still can’t, by itself, win a statewide election). As for McAuliffe, who, judging by his TV appearances this summer appears to be attempting to represent Margaritaville, name recognition may not be the problem so much as a perception of carpetbagging and/or sleazy insiderness.

In every ranking of the Senate races, the open seat in Virginia always comes out on top of the heap in terms of those seats most likely to change hands. Former Gov. Mark Warner (D) practically walks on water, and maintains a consistently large lead over his opponent, former Gov. Jim Gilmore (R), as they compete for the seat currently held by retiring Republican Sen. John Warner (no relation to Mark). Beneath the confident chorus declaring Mark Warner's lead, however, there has been a faint hum of discordant worry, as Warner's name has been tossed about as a potential VP for Barack Obama. If Warner were taken out of the Senate race, our hold on that seat would be much, much more precarious, as there is no Democrat with the popularity and stature statewide to assure us of victory.

Well, I am pleased to report that we can all breathe a sigh of relief.  At the State Democratic Convention in Richmond today, Mark Warner officially ruled out running for Vice President, stating that he is “110%” committed to winning the Senate seat.  

That is not only good news for us this year; it also means that Democrats who have great potential but need time to build their statewide support, such as State Sen. Creigh Deeds, Delegate Brian Moran, and former Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, can save up their energies for the Gubernatorial election next year, rather than worry about having to jump into the Senate race in Warner's absence.

UPDATE:  The Virginia State Democratic Convention took place in Hampton Roads, not Richmond.  (The Richmond Times-Dispatch article I cited above did not mention as much– h/t Johnny Longtorso).