Apparently having your name plastered across the top of every newspaper and newscast can help your popularity.
In the immediate aftermath of the three-way Democratic primary, Democrat Creigh Deeds was staked an early lead of Republican Bob McDonnell in the race for the governor's mansion.
But now a month after Deeds blew out Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe, McDonnell is back on top according the Public Policy Polling. McDonnell is leading 49 percent to Deeds' 43 percent. Even though I'm sure there will be plenty of hemming and hawing about the geographic, racial and ethnic make up of the sample - because there always is - in the grand scheme of things the numbers make sense.
Deeds was something of an afterthought in the race for governor until the final three weeks - when he made a major surge that peaked when he nailed down 50 percent of the vote and a heaping mound of news coverage - that was made up largely of cute word-play using his last name. So his numbers were artificially high in the early June sample.
Meanwhile, the sample finds that Deeds isn't doing terribly well with the state's African-American population. That sample meshes with the fact that the only congressional district Deeds did not win in the primary was Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott's rambling district which stretches from Richmond to Hampton Roads.
Those folks didn't have a lot of background knowledge on the rural Bath County Democrat, and Scott all but endorsed McAuliffe in the final days of the campaign. Needless to say, Deeds will have Scott on board in the fall - right in time for the picnic - along with President Barack Obama - who has pledged to campaign for Deeds. Obama ought to be able to muscle up some turnout in Virginia's black community.
The poll finds that McDonnell is doing a good job connecting with independent voters where he has a whopping 54 to 33 advantage over Deeds. This is crucial swing portion of the electorate and McDonnell has been aggressively reaching out to them in a largely vanilla but omnipresent "Hey look I have a family" advertising campaign. McDonnell also took some bi-partisan steps with his "Virginians for McDonnell" organization - which includes folks who backed Mark Warner and Tim Kaine at the ballot box.
In fact, the sample shows that Virginia might be ripe for the Republican revival that so many folks in the GOP are hoping to cultivate in the Commonwealth. The poll gives Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling a 46 to 40 lead over Democrat Jody Wagner and Republican Sen. Ken Cuccinelli a 45 to 38 lead over Steve Shannon.
Here's an interesting snippet that ought to give a little heartburn to both campaigns:
The race is in a very similar position to 2005. The poll released that year closest to today's date of July 7th showed Jerry Kilgore with a 6 point lead identical to the one we found last week. The question now is whether McDonnell can hold onto this lead better than Kilgore did, or if Deeds will be able to replicate Tim Kaine's success in peaking at just the right time. He certainly did that in the primary.
Click here to read the full report on Deeds versus McDonnell over at Public Policy Polling...
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