Posted on 06/11/2009 8:15:55 AM PDT by ScottinVA
Newly chosen Democratic gubernatorial nominee R. Creigh Deeds leads his Republican opponent, former Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, by six points in the first poll of Virginia voters released since Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey taken Wednesday night finds Deeds with 47% of the vote and McDonnell with 41%. Two percent (2%) favor of some other candidate and 10% are undecided.
Forty-two percent (42%) say Deeds, a state senator from Bath County, is also more likely to win in November, while 34% give the edge to McDonnell.
Deeds scored a come-from-behind win in Tuesday’s primary, turning what looked several weeks ago like a third-place finish into a rout over Clinton confidant Terry McAuliffe and former state Delegate Brian J. Moran.
These figures on the general election represent a continuation of that comeback by Deeds. In April, Deeds made the weakest showing of the three Democratic candidates in match-ups against McDonnell, trailing him by 15 points, 45% to 30%. But now with one Democratic candidate only in the race, he has solidified support in his own party.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter.
Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Virginia Democrats now favor Deeds over McDonnell while McDonnell has the support of 78% of Republicans. Among unaffiliated voters, McDonnell has a seven-point lead.
It is worth noting that, following Deeds’ victory, the number of undecided Democrats is significantly lower than the number of undecided Republicans and unaffiliated voters. It is too early to know if this reflects a temporary bounce following Deeds’ primary victory or if it signifies a more lasting change.
(Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ...
from what I’ve heard Deeds is blue-dog enough to be drawing some more conservative leaning independents
Can’t think of ONE GOOD REASON WHY.
The Bushes and McCain did a great job of screwing up the GOP and they had a lot of help from idiots like Bohmer and McConnell.
Once again the Dems will allow a conservative blue dog in a moderate to conservative state to run (and win). And then laugh all the way to the bank as he passes their left wing agenda.
They are if nothing else pragmatists.
I was on FR eight years ago when it was the Earley vs. Warner race. There were definitely some trolls posting back then who claimed to be Republicans but signed up on FR to claim the Republican was a RINO and the RAT candidate was "more conservative", and I expect the RATs to pull the same stunt this time around to try and sway conservative-leaning voters. Deeds is going to hide his leftist views and run as a common sense pro-business "centrist" type. Remember, Deeds lost the A.G. race by fewer than 350 votes. This will probably be another nail biter.
I'm more optimistic than 2001 and 2005 since the VA GOP seems to have learned from their mistakes of phoning-in the campaign, and Deeds does not have type of massive organization that Warner had (or even Jim Webb for that matter), but he's definitely learned from the other winning VA RATs about how to market himself to swing voters.
However, if it's a worse case scenario and the VA GOP fails to take the Governor's office for a third time in a row, I hope they will rethink their constant strategy of using the A.G. office as automatic stepping stone for Governor four years later (yes I know they're term-limited there, but it wouldn't kill them to nominate a politician with more experience holding a different office)
Corin, can you remind the folks how far up in polling Mary Sue Terry was ??? You know, Gov. Terry ??
According to the poll, McDonnell leads Deeds by 7% among independents.
Deeds is not a blue-dog. He had a few more moderate positions, to the point where in 2005 he had an NRA endorsement.
But he has veered sharply to the left since then. He won’t get the NRA backing this time — he supports new gun laws to restrict the sale of guns at gun shows, and he strongly favors preventing citizens from carrying guns to protect themselves against crazy people like the Virginia Tech shooter.
He opposed the defense of marriage act (even though he claims to be opposed to gay marriage). He opposes the ban on partial birth abortion. He has voted for every tax increase around.
And in fact, he was endorsed by the Washington Post primarily because he not only strongly supported the absurd and unconstitutional “transportation funding” bill, but also pushed for increased gas taxes.
He is in the pocket of the teacher’s unions, and wants to ensure the the teachers get lots more money so they can give more money to the democrats.
He supports pushes toward universal health care, wanting to give insurance to “all Virginians”, along with the socialist plan to regulate the cost of prescription drugs so they are “affordable”.
Even the Washington Post can’t give a good reason to call him anything but a liberal.
About the only area where he isn’t a typical liberal is that he believes in God.
Sure didn’t take long for the Dem to bounce back did it. And his primary victory was won with a turnout of what, 6%? I would say let’s hope that’s an indication of how fired up they are, but Webb managed to win in ‘06 after a Demo turnout of under 4% (according to National Review) in his primary.
However, let us remember 2004 when Kerry became the sudden savior after winning the IA caucus. The day after that he was 10 points ahead of Bush. We all remember how that race turned out. IIRC, in 1993 George Allen was trailing early on in that campaign and he won by a large margin. So anything can happen. I would have been surprised if McDonnell kept a large lead all summer.
Deeds is a big tax-raiser, has nothing on his web site about jobs, and in fact argues that transportation is more important than jobs.
The other set of useful idiots is conservatives (and unfortunately they are genuine conservatives) who insist the GOP candidate has it in the bag no matter how well the RAT candidate is doing. Some thread will pop up a few weeks before the November election saying the RAT candidate is ahead by 5 points, and they will blow it off like "Sssssshah, right. If the polls are saying the pubbie is behind, that means our guy is REALLY 20 points ahead. Don't believe the media, the Dem doesn't have a prayer". And they'll keep fiddling til election day while Rome burns. During both the Kilgore and Allen campaigns, there were a ton of freepers insisting they'd roll over the Dem and win easily, despite those races getting tighter and tighter. They refused to see the light and vigorously go after the Dem until the final week or so of the campaign when it was too late.
He is not a blue dog, that is a lie perpetrated by the Washington Post.
Deeds himself said that he was the most “progressive” of the democrats.
Deeds sounds about as far to the left as 0bama. A lot of conservatives said no one that extreme could win in VA and sadly they were wrong. But Deeds presumably does not have other factors going for him the way 0bama did. Perhaps the Dems will not be so enthusiastic this Nov. as they were last year. Plus McDonnell has more $$. So I think it will be close but we can be optimistic for now.
Odd last week they said any of the candidates would have a hard time beating Mcdonnell.
Yes, and VA, like OH, has been trending leftward in recent elections. They’ve elected ‘Rats as Governor for two cycles, gave George Allen the boot, and absolutely slaughtered the conservative ‘Pub who was trying to replace John Warner in the Senate (was it Gilmore?). VA led the way for Obama’s incursion into the southern power base of the GOP (along with NC and FL). There is definitely a strong undercurrent trend towards the ‘Rats. It will be a tough fight for awhile.
Yep, I fought them in 2001, 2005 and 2006 with Webb.
but it wouldn't kill them to nominate a politician with more experience holding a different office
In all honesty, we don't have anyone in that category unless you pull a Congressman.
McDonnell is a strong candidate. Stronger than either Earley or Kilgore. And I'm a HUGH Jerry Kilgore fan, in spite of his loss.
IIRC it was somewhere in the 30 pt. range that summer.
Yes, but he's Presbyterian (PCUSA)
:-)
McConnell won the AG election against Deeds by the skin of his teeth, and Virginia has blued considerably since then. I think this one’s a lost cause for McConnell.
That's not surprising. Deeds is one of the "Blue Dog" conservative Democrats who polls well downstate, while still managing to hold the Democratic voters in NoVA and Richmond.
I know you really dislike us "out-of-staters" weighing-in on Virginia campaigns, but I trust the judgment of freepers who warned Webb and Kaine would be formidable opponents than the "native Virginians" who blew off the race until the final weeks and said the Dem candidate "didn't have a prayer"
I think McConnell can pull off a win here, if he's firing on all thrusters from the start of the campaign. We can't afford any more campaigns where the GOP waits around to the final weeks to go after the RAT candidate.
McDonnell’s main problem is that he is easily portrayed as a sock puppet for the Pat Robertson types.
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