Is SUSA’s latest poll of Virginia’s Governor’s race an outlier? Or is it an accurate reflection of the dynamics that might have seized the state over the past few days, perhaps due to reactions to the first debate opposing Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds? Whatever the answer turns out to be, it is sure to cause some sleepless nights at Democratic headquarters since it all but destroys the poll-fueled narrative of a Deeds comeback: SUSA finds the Republican nominee leading by 14% - 55% to 41%.
Adding insult to injury for Deeds, SUSA finds that Republicans are leading by slightly smaller margins in the two other statewide races - Bill Bolling is up by 13% in the Lieutenant Governor race, Ken Cuccinelli is up by 11% in the Attorney General race. Conventional wisdom is that Deeds has more of a chance of winning than Jody Wagner and Steve Shannon, so this differential makes it harder for Deeds to dismiss this poll as overall skewed towards the right.
This is the third consecutive SUSA poll with McDonnell up double-digits: He led by 15% in July and by 12% four weeks ago. While that might suggest SUSA’s numbers are too GOP-friendly, its summer numbers were in line with those of other pollsters: McDonnell was up by double-digits in other summer surveys (PPP, WaPo poll).
But September surveys had found a narrow race so this new survey contradicts polls like Insider Advantage this week-end (4% margin) and PPP this morning (5% margin). Consider that: SUSA is the only pollster since mid-August to find McDonnell up by double-digits and the only pollster since the master’s thesis story gained steam to have him leading by more than 7%. And here we’re talking the double of that?
That said, what makes it hard to simply dismiss the poll as an outlier is that the poll’s internal numbers are certainly not aberrant based on what we know of this race and there is no mystery as to where McDonnell’s lead comes from:
- He has a gigantic lead among independents (59% to 35%); that is an improvement for him over his 11% early September lead. (That poll was also conducted after the Washington Post broke the master’s thesis story.)
- The pool of likely voters is far more GOP than the electorate at large. 51% of respondents said they voted for McCain in 2008 with 44% saying Obama; Republicans outnumber Democrats 37% to 32%; and to a low a share of respondents say they come from Northern Virginia.
Independents heavily leaning towards McDonnell, a demoralized Democratic base - these are findings all pollsters found throughout the summer, notably PPP and The WaPo poll. Since then, these institutes had found Deeds energizing Democrats; but for SUSA, it’s as if the entire month of September had not happened! If SUSA’s turnout model resembles what is truly brewing on the ground, Deeds has no chance to win in 5 weeks - and the very fact that the possibility exists that the motivation differential is still this big is great news for the GOP.
(While this morning I wrote that PPP trendlines suggested the master’s thesis story helped Deeds, that was PPP’s first survey of the race post-WaPo article. On the other hand, this is SUSA’s second survey since that story: Their early September poll did find the turnout differential shrinking, and this new poll has the electorate’s composition remaining stable.)
Yet, Democrats can take comfort in the fact that all other recent polls have found a tightening race. Whatever they think of SUSA’s poll, what is important for them to recognize is that they don’t need to trust it to follow the only possible conclusion that can be drawn from such numbers - that ensuring high Democratic turnout has to remain Deeds’s primary concern over the next few weeks. I said just as much this morning based on PPP, which painted a far more positive situation for Deeds.
At this point of the campaign, what other choice does he have but to keep hammering the master’s thesis story - at least in Northern Virginia? Other polls have found that this is making a difference, so it is perfectly advisable for Deeds to do so. In fact, he just released a new ad devoted to the issue:
Before Democrats get a panic attack we need to see other polls also showing McDonnell going back up. Even Rassmussen’s latest poll has a closer result than this, so I’m not going to take too much stock in SUSA unless other polls start to cofirm the result. Altho the narrative remains that Deeds needs to get the Dem base out.
Re Tim Kaine’s future–there are a number of people who believe, and have since Jim Webb was first elected, that he is not particularly interested in serving more than one term. If so (and maybe even Webb doesn’t know for sure yet), a 2012 Senate race would be a natural fit for Kaine, though he might face competition for the nomination, beginning with one or both of McAuliffe and Brian Moran.
Steven - an interesting idea. Kaine would get the nomination - he has not only won his party’s primary when he ran for Governor but he won statewide. McAuliffe has done neither.
The problem with the past few polls that show the race much tighter is they assume Democrats will have a HIGHER turnout percentage wise then they did in ‘08. This is HIGHLY unlikely.
Rassmussen 9 point lead confirms that this isn’t just an outlier and the race is not as close as it seems.