Sunday, August 24, 2008

Virginia President and Senate

Barack Obama 47
John McCain 45

Barack Obama has held a two point lead in all three of PPP's Virginia polls. He's not having as much of a problem here as he is in some other states with nailing down the Democratic vote- an 84-12 lead with voters in his own party is not too dissimilar from John McCain's 89-7. Independents are basically split with Obama leading 41-39.

Beyond that the race breaks down pretty much as you would expect. Obama leads by nine points with women while McCain leads by five points with men. Obama's up 57-34 with voters under 30, McCain's up 57-33 with those over 65. McCain has the 55-36 advantage with white voters but Obama gets 89% of black voters.

There are very few votes up for grabs in the state so this seems likely to be one state that goes right down to the wire with turnout operations playing a critical role in who tips the balance.

Full results here

Mark Warner 55
Jim Gilmore 32

Mark Warner continues to hold a dominant lead in the race to replace John Warner in the Senate. He leads with every demographic subgroup in the poll, and even holds Jim Gilmore below 70% with Republican voters in the survey.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the Kaine Veep speculation was artificially inflating Obama's numbers in Va and now that he finished in last place on the short list will the state begin to trend for McCain, more in line with the kind of state it is - -one hospitable to conservative to moderate Democrats, but resistant to Liberals like Obama and Biden?

obamawill said...

petekent your theory is flawed. the possiblity for virginia going blue is all in the demographics. its the young voters that go heavily for obama and older voters that go heavily mccain. you ask why? older voters are more inclined to vote based on VALUES. as opposed to younger voters who are more inclined to vote on economic, educational, interests. this is further complicated by the fact that younger voters are less likely to vote (18-34). but polls are showing a huge gap in excitement in favor of obama> will that bring them out in never before seen numbers- that remains to be seen.

Anonymous said...

The trend in Virginia has been moving strongly towards the Democrats and the Republicans have only lookecd to the past conservative and outdated theories that have only left VA in the old South rather than in the new South. It also is not just youth but also better educated and more global population. People want programs and policies that will help them on health care and the economy rather than the old divisive politics that were the norm in VA politics of the past.

Anonymous said...

In addition to what obamawill said, all of the recent polls have shown the race as a coin flip. The last 9 polls have ranged from Obama +2 to McCain +1. That's an amazing amount of consistency in the state.

Anonymous said...

In speaking to traditional conservatives in the Southern part of the Commonwealth, there is huge disappointment with Bush and considerable skeptism on McCain. Question is will Palin bring some energy back and get them to the polls in November. If that happens then the demographics still favor McCain. Remember that for the young vote in NOVA there is a big difference between 'enthusiasm' (lots of fun)and actually taking time out and turning up at a polling booth (too busy having fun).

 
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