Poll: Republican McDonnell Leads In Virginia Gubernatorial Race
A new survey of this year's Virginia gubernatorial race by Public Policy Polling (D) has Republican former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell posting a lead over the Democratic candidate, state Sen. Creigh Deeds.
The numbers: McDonnell 49%, Deeds 43%, with a ±4% margin of error.
A round of polls from other firms, taken right after the June 2 primary, had Deeds ahead and apparently enjoying a post-primary bump. PPP did not release a poll at the time, but it would appear that Deeds' post-primary bounce may have gone away.
The pollster's analysis notes that the Republican nominee for Governor in 2005 also had a lead at this point in the race, but the Democrat ultimately won the race: "The question now is whether McDonnell can sustain it, unlike Jerry Kilgore, or whether Deeds will come from behind to win as Tim Kaine did."
Josh
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Brian
I did some number-crunching on this PPP poll, and it has some sampling problems that skew Republican. The biggest issue is that they peg under-30 voters at 8% of the total, when that group are 21% of the adult population and the 2006 Senate race exit poll (a good baseline for this fall's election given there was no exit poll for 2005) pegged under-30 voters at 12% of the total. That group was at census, 21%, in the 2008 Virginia exit poll. They'll be sub-census this fall, but not down to 8%. And yes, I see that the crosstabs show McDonnell up 47-45 with under-30 voters, but the margin of error is way too high on that subsample for the crosstab to matter. In reality under-30 voters will break toward Deeds by a big margin.
I also note that the ideological sampling skews right, at 38C-19L, when the 2006 exit poll showed a more realistic 35C-21L. And the partisan breakdown shows a big drop in Dems and a big uptick in indies from last year, although the 2006 exit poll showed a very different sample altogether at 39R-36D. Either way, I think there today is an established-but-not-huge Democratic partisan advantage in Virginia, and PPP's sample of 34-33-33 doesn't reflect that.
Ultimately I think a realistic turnout model shows this race a dead heat.
July 7, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
McDonnel has no chance if NoVA (aka communist Virginia, aka not real America) gets mobilized and votes. VA has been managed very well by Democratic Governors tyvm.
July 7, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink