Posted on 09/18/2009 8:28:58 AM PDT by DanZanRyu
It's a rare day when a Rasmussen poll unnerves Republicans, and they can take solace in a poll commissioned by Daily Kos. But that's what's happening in Virginia, where Rasmussen's latest puts Republican Bob McDonnell up by only two percentage points over Creigh Deeds, 48 percent to 46 percent. Two weeks ago, Rasmussen had McDonnell up by 9 percentage points.
The Daily Kos poll by Research 2000 puts McDonnell up 50–43, trailing among women by only 3 percentage points and leading among independents, 51 percent to 38 percent.
Could Rasmussen be right? Could the thesis story, and relentless ads suggesting McDonnell wants to take Virginia back to the "Dark Ages" (I am not exaggerating), really have taken a race that looked like a blowout to neck-and-neck? Well, some of this was expected; Deeds was underperforming among some key Democratic demographics who were likely to "come home" at some point.
On the other hand, if Deeds can use a thesis to demonstrate that McDonnell has unacceptably socially conservative views and erase a gap of 15 percentage points in the middle of a deep recession where the state's unemployment rate is the worst in 25 years, it will obliterate much of what we thought about Virginia politics. Note that even as the Post was beating George Allen over the head with "macaca" in a miserable year for Republicans nationwide, he lost by four-tenths of one percent.
Daily Kos has Mcdonnnell leading 50-43.
Deeds Sitting on a Follow-up to the Thesis Attack?
I talked to one of my Virginia politics guys, who in the past has expressed nagging doubts that Republicans had grown complacent in recent campaigns.
He says that in his part of the state, people really don’t seem to think that a 20-year-old college thesis is a big deal. But he expects more in this vein; he’s hearing the Deeds campaign has some sort of follow-up attack, apparently something delicate because it deals with Bob McDonnell’s family. He didn’t have any details. He did add, however, that “voters don’t like bullies. If Deeds looks like he’s being too negative, it will backfire.”
This figure is of the opinion that the GOP candidate for attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, “is going to win and he has an incredible grassroots network, which ought to benefit McDonnell.” There has been less polling for the AG race, but most have Cuccinelli up by a healthy margin. (One exception was that odd Clarus poll, which had 35 percent undecided.)
This race will be close. VA is now a purple state. That said, McDonnell cleaned Deeds’ clock in yesterday’s debate. It will be interesting to see how much Deeds wants Obama to campaign for him and how closely associated he wants to be with Obama. It will be a barometer of how well both are doing with the public.
“unacceptably socially conservative views”
Since when were “socially conservative views” unacceptable? Plus, isn’t this Virginia we’re talking about?
My mom’s family lives in Bristol (southwestern Virginia) and they complain about Obama, but they didn’t vote in the last election. I have a feeling that a lot of would-be-conservatives in the rural areas of Virginia didn’t vote. They need to!
I mean, my grandparents talk about how they want to get Obama out of office and I’m like, “Take part in it! VOTE THEM OUT!”
Go Bob Go!!!
Bingo - that’s the “dirty little secret” of the 2008 election (unfortunately). Obambi didn’t win so much because of the youth/black vote - the conservative vote did NOT come out for McCain (even with Palin on the ticket) (this confirmed by Rove with return numbers after the election) so if you believe this, the “sleeping dog” voters WILL come out for a CONSERVATIVE and should be make the difference - just sayin’.....
The conservative base in Virginia has not forgiven, and won’t for a long time, the coup that McDonnell and others engineered to throw Jeff Frederick out as the Chairman of the VA Republican Party. If McDonnell loses it will be because conservatives stay home. I am. As long as the elitist RINOs run the RPV from backrooms in Richmond, they won’t see a dime, time or a vote from many conservatives. Most of Virginia west of Route 28 and south of Route 234 could care less about McDonnell’s thesis, but they do care about the banana republic coup the elitists engineered.
Yes!! EVERY election is controlled by CONSERVATIVE republican turnout.
I saw an amazing study of elections results that showed that Democraps ALWAYS get out their base, in the same numbers, every election.
So the difference in any election is how many Republicans show up. Palin helped McLame lose ONLY by a few points . If it was not for here, I am betting there would have been a 15 point mandate for Obama
Sounds pathetic.
Completely agree - yet when I have posted this in the past, I have been flamed royally - really amazing! But also in this light, we really need to blame those who didn’t vote in 2008 for the mess we are in now, right? Or maybe this is the way we as a nation need to learn a lesson???? Dunno...
Welcome to Free Republic!
As I’ve said repeatedly, Virginia has always been a purple state. But you’re right about the debate.
So, the GOP ran a hard conservative platform for the Congressional elections on 1994 with Gingrich running the show and won control of congress for the first time in 40 years.
But they immediately lost the edge by letting a bunch of democraps run as republicans and with idiots like McLame adding that we must “reach across the aisle” while we were in control...
New poll ping. I’d say that when you look at the internals of the Rasmussen poll and look at this one and the recent Clarus poll, McD is probably up by 5-7.
But, The Washington Post, shreds Deeds today over his debate performance.
New poll ping. I’d say that when you look at the internals of the Rasmussen poll and look at this one and the recent Clarus poll, McD is probably up by 5-7.
But, The Washington Post, shreds Deeds today over his debate performance.
But they did so while at the same time still supporting him and tearing into McD.
Beyond Deeds’s debate performance .. this guy who runs ads about ‘turning us back to the dark ages’ for women condescendingly tells a woman reporter “I made myself perfectly clear, young lady!” He was not at all contemptuous of the male reporters asking the same question she did. And, no, he hadn’t made himself perfectly clear.
The RPV has to stay on top of this as if they’re 20 points down because WaPo has too much invested in the outcome.
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