Is the thesis making a difference or not?

It's always nice when polls give easy answers to questions about what's going on in the political world but a lot of the time they don't. That's certainly the case with figuring out what impact Bob McDonnell's thesis is having on the Virginia race for Governor.

Here are some indications that it is:

-Voters who say they were undecided a month are going for Creigh Deeds by a 35-32 margin

-42% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of Bob McDonnell, compared to 31% a month ago.

-34% of voters say the thesis made them less likely to vote for McDonnell while only 7% said it made them more likely to do so.

And here are some indications that it isn't:

-The vast majority of that 34% who said the thesis made them less likely to vote for McDonnell had already been Deeds voters before that story came out.

-A month ago Deeds led by 9 points among women, now it's 8, basically unchanged.

-Among voters who are very familiar with the thesis story McDonnell actually leads 55-41.

All that said Deeds is closing in on McDonnell and a big reason for that is more and more Obama voters say they're planning to come out to the polls. The thesis story might not change a lot of votes from people who were already going to turn out but if it gets Democrats motivated to cast a ballot who wouldn't have otherwise it will have a significant impact on the race.

The results of this poll will be out tomorrow morning.