A new Rasmussen poll gives Republican Bob McDonnell a nine-point lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds with just over a month to go until Election Day.
This is a bit stronger advantage than the Public Policy Polling report put out earlier this week, but it certainly jives with the numbers we have seen from McDonnell over the past few months. The GOP has to be happy that McDonnell's number have actually gone up over the past month according to the folks at Rasmussen.
One constant polling factor that need to be monitored is both the candidate performance when it comes to independent voters, where McDonnell continues to display an advantage. If McDonnell can keep his standing with these middle-of-the-road folks it will bode well for his election odds.
But that centrist pack tends to be late bloomers on the campaign trail and they can break heavily during the final weeks of a campaign - much in the same way that voters broke to Deeds in a wave during the Democratic primary. Then again, a lot of folks said they broke for Deeds because Democratic front runners Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe were beating the hell out of each other.
Deeds is unlikely to emerge from the race unscathed by the taint of negative campaigning - after all the campaign ads sure speak for themselves.
Click here for more analysis on the poll between McDonnell and Deeds
Rasmussen has long been known as a supplier of Republican-friendly polls, through their push-distorted lines of questioning etc. Most other, more accurate polls, have the difference at around five percent.
Posted by: Neil B ♪ | Friday, October 02, 2009 at 01:24 PM