Virginia’s gubernatorial election will be held next November - in “only” 11 months - and Rasmussen just released the contest’s first poll, testing the three declared Democratic candidates against the probable Republican nominee Attorney General Robert McDonnell.
All match-ups are close, testifying to Virginia’s status as a swing state and confirming that the race will keep us entertained over the next year (New Jersey’s gubernatorial election is also scheduled for next November, though Gov. Corzine’s vulnerability remains to be tested):
- The highest-profile Democrat, former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, is the weakest general election candidate: He trails McDonnell 41% to 36%.
- Two other Democrats perform better: state Senator Deeds, who lost the 2005 AG race against McDonnell by a few hundred votes, ties McDonnell once again (at 39%); state Delegate Brian Moran leads 41% to 37%.
As is expected at this early stage, all match-ups have a high number of undecided voters. Another reason that the race is largely unpredictable is that Obama’s popularity next fall will likely be an important factor in this race. For now, all we can say is that the race is wide open.
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Meanwhile, Research 2000 released a poll of Colorado’s upcoming senatorial race, testing conservative Democratic incumbent Ken Salazar against two potential opponents:
- Salazar is under 50% in one of the match-ups, as he leads former football star John Elway 48% to 39%. Salazar leads 51% to 37% against retiring and short-lived presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo.
Salazar’s mediocre approval numbers (48-41) are a clear sign that he is vulnerable, but Republicans have no obvious candidate to jump in the race against him as their bench has gotten thin after successive defeat in the past three cycles (in that time, Democrats picked-up both Senate seats, the governor’s mansion and three of the seven House seats). Elway is enough of a celebrity to perhaps start the race in a credible position, while Tancredo is likely too conservative to unseat an incumbent statewide.
The RNSC will have to work very hard to make the most of Salazar’s vulnerability: Strong recruitment by the GOP will be difficult but critical.
I agree that the Virginia 2009 election will be a toss-up, and a early test of Obama’s popularity as President (Corzine is also vulerarable, but NJ is much more Democratic than Virginia and the GOP’s strongest candidate Christoper Christie is behind by about 8-9 points in the latest poll, his only accomplishment is keeping Corzine under 50% and not losing by double digits.) One thing to know about Senator Deeds is that in the 2005 Attorney General’s race, Deeds performed much more strongly in the rural parts of Virgina then any other Democrat had before (althrough Mark Warner probably surpassed him in this aspect in his landslide win in the 2008 Senate Race). However, Deeds performed worst compared to recent Democratic candidates in Northern Virginia, which helped to lead to his narrow loss. Deeds would benefit greatly from Obama if he is still popular, as well as from Mark Warner, Jim Webb, and Tim Kaine: all of these guys would be helpful in bringing up Deed’s margins in Northern Virginia, and the fact that he is the most popular Dem candidate among Democrats is very telling. I’m a little suprised Moran is doing better than Deeds, but he is from Northern Virgina, and he is probably doing much better than Deeds in populous Northern Virginia in order for him to be ahead of McDonnell. McAullife’s poor showing is no suprise: he has rarely been in Virginia even through his home is there and would probably face resentment from Virginians.
In Colorado, I’m not suprised that Salazar is vulerable, and in fact I believe that Colorado, not Nevada, is the Democrat’s most vulernable seat. Harry Reid is the majority leader, and while his popularity has been hit hard because of his position as the highly public and contentious leader of the Senate Dems, Obama’s double digit win in Nevada shows that it will be extremely difficult for Republicans to take him down. The upside to being Majority leader is that his assocication with Obama is much higher than other Senators. If Obama is still popular in 2010, not even Jon Porter will be able to touch Reid. Salazar however seems to be pretty similar to Martinez of Florida: rather bland and uninspiring and it wouldn’t be hard for a strong Republican to challange him despite Obama being popular there. Also, Salazar is more conservative than Senator-elect Mark Udall and progressives may not feel like supporting Salazar in 2010 if they know they can get more liberal Democrats to win in Colorado. Of course, the GOP’s biggest problem is it’s thin bench. The strongest GOP candidate in Colorado would be former Governor Bill Owens, who is still pretty popular and would make Salazar worry alot about keeping Job. Secondary GOP candidates would be Scott McInnis, who is the former Rep from CO-3 (and Ken Salazar’s brother, John Salazar’s, immediant predessor), and Bob Beauprez, former CO-7 Rep, although he would have a slight stigma from being beaten by Bill Ritter in the 2006 Colorado governor’s race.
The bad news for the GOP is that it is more likely than not that none of the candidates will want to run against Salazar, probably steming from a desire to not get involved in politics again than anything else.
John Elway would be interesting, but he is still a pretty weak candidate. If the GOP pours millions for him or if Obama’s popularity drops significantly, then Elway certainly would have a chance, but he would still probably end up short. Tancredo’s controversial immigration views would almost certaintly lead to the hispanic Salazar to win 80% or more of the hispanic vote, which would lead to an easy win for him. Tancredo is the bottom of the barrel as far as recruitments go.
Jaxx, two quick comments about Colorado: (1) Yes, Owens would most certainly be the strongest GOP candidate but it’s hard to see him running against Salazar if he passed on the open race this year. (2) Bob Beauprez was supposed to be a rising GOP star but, as you said, his gubernatorial run was pretty catastrophic…
An interesting observation/historical trend:
the last Virginia governor to be elected who shared the political party of the sitting President was in 1973 — since then, the last 8 governors have been of the opposition national party.
I essentially agree with what has been said here so far about both Virginia’s 2009 gubernatorial and Colorado’s 2010 Senate races. With regard to Colorado, I’d like to see Salazar replaced by someone more ideologically like Udall. Representatives DeGette or Perlmutter (in the probably unlikely event they were willing to forgo safe reelection for just the chance of a primary upset) would be good enough for me. But we may be stuck with Salazar, because no viable Democrats seem inclined to put their body on the line in the coming primary and the likely Republican candidates (who are no prize ideologically) don’t look that strong. At the end of his reign, former governor Owens seemed to have worn out his welcome with some of his hard right base. Maybe he didn’t run for the open Senate seat in 2008 because he wanted to get away from these people. If true, maybe he’ll still feel alienated enough in 2010 not to run against Salazar. John Elway is glamorous and rich enough to give big money to the GOP campaign. Sometimes, given the attention span of the voting public, that’s all it takes. (Maybe, like Reagan, he’s good at one-liners.) I’m not close enough to the Colorado scene to know whether he’s said or done anything that would alienate a substantial block of people.
Yeah Taniel, Beauprez’s race against Ritter was pretty horrible, but he would still in my opinion be better than John Elway and hell of a lot better than Tancrando or some no-name Republican. Beauprez did represent a district that has a slight Dem lean, which speaks to at least some statewide potential, and in 2006, Beauprez was running against a popular Democrat in a horrible enviroment for Republicans. Salazar is less popular than Ritter, especially among very liberal Democrats (despite Ritter being pro-life and Salazar not), and the GOP enviroment will not be as bad in 2010 as it was in 2006 and 2008. If Obama popularity drops or/and liberal Democrats decide to try to primary or simply not support Salazar, then Beauprez could very well have a good chance, like McInnis but not like Elway and especially Tancredo.
DeGette was my rep when I lived in Denver. i thought she was fantastic, but Salazar would give CO Dems a much better chance of holding that seat then she would in a statewide election. Salazar does havw a good rep here in Metro DC FWIW, and while he isn’t as progressive as many Dems would like, CO, while a state I would move back to in a heartbeat if I could, isn’t MA, MD, or CA electorally. Translation: I just can’t see a Denver Dem winning a statewide senatorial election.
The key to not letting Tancredo tick you off is to treat him like the joke that he is and not take him seriously.