McDonnell Lead Holds In Mason-Dixon Virginia Poll

Republican candidate Bob McDonnellA Mason-Dixon poll reported today in our local newsrag shows Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell maintaining a strong lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds. Poll Shows McDonnell With  Double-Digit Lead Over Deeds. The poll results have McDonnell up by 12 points, with only 6 per cent of voters undecided.  These numbers are almost exactly the same as the aggregate of eight earlier polls analyzed in Friday's report, Virginia Election -- A Hammer And Tongs Finish. 

Oh, He Probably Shouldn't Have Said That -- In a related story carried by the Associated Press, Virginia Senator Jim Webb is reported as saying that the nation "is watching to see whether Democrats can win the governor's race and other statewide offices." Oops! This is contrary to the Democratic Party line, which minimizes the importance of the Virginia election.  Maybe Senator Webb didn't get the memo.

Winning Your Own Neighborhood -- It is extremely difficult to win an election if you can't carry your neighborhood, and it looks like Creigh Deeds is about to be shellacked in his own bailiwick.  Deeds hails from the Shenandoah Valley area but the Mason-Dixon poll shows this to be McDonnell's strongest region, by a margin of 67% to 29%. If you recall the 2000 Presidential election -- and who doesn't? -- you know that Democrats blame their ticket's loss on the Florida vote count and/or the Supreme Court decision in Bush versus Gore.  But the fact is that Al Gore couldn't carry his own neighborhood, that is, the state of Tennessee.  Regardless of the Florida outcome, if Gore had won his home state he would have been elected President in 2000.  So it seems likely to go with Deeds, as his home folks prepare to vote for McDonnell.  True, Deeds may poll slightly ahead in McDonnell's native ground, Fairfax County, but McDonnell is well ahead in his present home area of Hampton Roads.

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