PPP's newest look at the Virginia Senate race finds Tim Kaine and George Allen dead even at 46%. Although we've always found a tight contest, this is the first time in our last five polls that Kaine hasn't had a modest lead. Last month Kaine had a 46-44 advantage.
The numbers break down pretty much as you would expect. Kaine is up 50/39 with women, while Allen has a 53/40 advantage with men. There's almost no spillover across party lines- only 6% of Democrats are planning to vote for Allen and just 4% of Republicans are supporting Kaine. Allen leads 55-37 with white voters, and Kaine leads 66-25 with non-white voters. Kaine leads 49-40 with voters under 45, and Allen leads 50-43 with voters over 45. Everything about this race is about as predictable as it could be.
Allen and Kaine have very similar favorability numbers as well. Allen comes out at a net +2 with 43% of voters seeing him favorably to 41% with an unfavorable opinion. Kaine is at a net +1 with 45% of voters rating him positively to 44% who have a negative view.
Nothing in this race ever really changes.
Other notes from Virginia:
-Mark Warner continues to be Virginia's most popular politician with 50% of voters approving of him to 27% who disapprove. Warner has more crossover support than any of his colleagues with 29% of Republicans giving him good marks. He has almost identical numbers to McDonnell with independents at 54/29.
-The Virginia Senate race would have been a challenge for Democrats this year even if Jim Webb had decided to run for reelection. Voters are evenly divided on his job performance with 37% approving and 37% disapproving of him. He'd probably be in a similarly close race with Allen if that had been the match up.
-Eric Cantor is a good example of how unpopular House Republicans are with voters right now. Even in his home state just 27% have a favorable opinion of him to 39% who see him negatively. He's at 29/41 with independents. Democrats lead the generic Congressional ballot in the state 45-41.
-Artur Davis' interest in Virginia politics has received a lot of attention recently, but nobody there really knows who he is yet. 83% of voters have no opinion about him- among those who do he isn't faring very well- 5% rate him positively to 12% with an unfavorable opinion. Davis is at 5/16 with African Americans and 6/9 with Republicans.
-59% of Virginia voters would be happy to pay 14 cents extra for a Papa John's pizza so that the company's employees can have health care to 22% who would be unwilling to. Even Republicans would by a 45/34 margin.
Full results here
"Eric Cantor is a good example of how unpopular House Republicans are with voters right now." You came up with this blanket statement from polling on one member? Didn't you just find that Wisconsin voters support Paul Ryan overall? I think your logic is missing a few things. You could just as easily find democratic house members that are popular in their district but unpopular in their state and make the opposite case.
Posted by: Bob | August 23, 2012 at 04:08 PM