As of July 15, 2009 Rasmussen poll, Republican candidate Robert F. McDonnell took a narrow lead over Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Virginia voters finds McDonnell leading Deeds 44% to 41%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and 12% are undecided.
A month ago, just after Deeds beat two other gubernatorial candidates in the state Democratic Primary, he posted a six-point lead over McDonnell, 47% to 41%.
In a more recent Survey USA poll, conducted from 07/27/09 through 07/28/09, McDonnell holds a 15 percent lead over Deeds, and in fact, "In elections for Virginia Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General today, 07/29/09, fourteen weeks before Election Day, Republicans win all three offices by double digits, according to this latest SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WDBJ-TV Roanoke and WJLA-TV Washington DC."
In the race for Virginia Governor, Republican Bob McDonnell today defeats Democrat Creigh Deeds 55% to 40%. McDonnell, former Attorney General of Virginia, leads by 25 points among men, by 5 points among women. Deeds, a state senator who ran against McDonnell in the tightly-fought 2005 race for Attorney General, leads 6:1 among African Americans, 8:1 among Democrats, and 13:1 among liberals. Among moderates, Deeds is ahead by 8 points. McDonnell carries independents 2:1, and is above 50% in all regions of the state. Gun owners vote 2:1 McDonnell. Those without guns vote 5:4 Deeds. 14% of those who say they voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election say they will vote for Republican McDonnell in the gubernatorial contest; 9% of John McCain voters say they will cross over and vote for Democrat Deeds.
Incumbent Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling is today elected to a second term, defeating Democrat Jody Wagner, former Treasurer of Virginia and Secretary of Finance 54% to 42%. Wagner ties Bolling among women voters, and leads among blacks, Democrats, and liberals; Bolling is over 50% in all regions of the state.
In the race for the open office of Attorney General, Republican Ken Cuccinelli today defeats Democrat Steve Shannon 53% to 42%. Cuccinelli is a state senator; Shannon is a member of the state House of Delegates; both men represent adjoining districts in Fairfax County. Among men, Cuccinelli leads by 24 points; among women, Shannon leads by 3. Shannon, like both his running mates, takes the majority of the vote in each region of the state.
It seems that Obama's Domestic policies are becoming a liability to the Democratic politicians and the words from the title come from a Washington Post article where a voter, Chris Ann Cleland, is none too happy with the candidate she voted for, Barack Obama.
For Cleland, it was another example -- one of many this day -- of the broken promises of a president who she thought would be different. Obama pledged to change a Washington culture that favored corporations and the connected and instead lift families such as the one sitting next to Cleland out of their economic funk. Rather, she said, Obama has backed billions of dollars to banks that continue to "act like they're broke" and started the country down a path that Cleland said she thinks will lead to more grief for the middle class.
"He's just not as advertised," she said. "Nothing's changed for the common guy. I feel like I've been punked."
Obama will be headlining a fundraiser for Deeds to help his sagging numbers, but Deeds has already found himself "distancing" himself from Obama's policies as well as Obama himself.
But Obama's entry into the race presents a challenge for Deeds: How does he continue the momentum created by Obama, the first Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades to carry Virginia, without being saddled with the baggage the president now carries?
His answer has largely been to distance himself from the president's policies despite attempts by Republican Robert F. McDonnell to force him to take positions on issues such as unions, climate change and health care.
Deeds has declined to take firm stands, commending the administration's intentions to limit greenhouse gas emissions and expand health care but objecting generally to actions that would strain small businesses and families. He has also accused McDonnell of focusing too heavily on federal issues, declaring in a recent debate that "I'm not running for Congress." And he skipped two health-care town halls hosted by Obama in Virginia in recent weeks, saying it would be inappropriate to mix campaigning with White House policy initiatives.
These polls, with the election still many weeks away, is simply a way to gauge patterns, but it seems that in a few short months, Barack Obama has become political baggage to Democratic politicians.
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