Public Policy Polling

Virginia poll: No on Bob McDonnell for 2016 Politico
Poll: Majority of Virginia voters don't want McDonnell to run for president Talking Points Memo
Poll finds Va.'s senators, governor get positive marks Roanoke Times
A battle to see who's least disliked (Lynchburg, VA) News & Advance
Virginia supermajority oppose discrimination (Washington, D.C.) Metro Weekly
McConnell, Paul living life in middle CNHI News Service

Virginians cool on possibility of McDonnell White House run

Raleigh, N.C.- PPP's newest Virginia survey finds that voters aren't too keen on a 2016 Bob McDonnell Presidential bid.  Only 17% think he should make a run for the White House to 57% who are opposed to the idea. Even among Republicans just 30% think he should go for it to 37% who think he should not.

The lack of enthusiasm from Republicans about a McDonnell campaign shows through in numbers that find he is only the fourth choice of primary voters in the state to be their next national standard bearer. 17% support Marco Rubio with Chris Christie at 15% and Jeb Bush at 14% also coming in ahead of McDonnell's 12%. After that it's Rand Paul at 10%, Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan at 8%, Bobby Jindal at 3%, and Rick Santorum at 2%.

Virginia cool on McDonnell '16

PPP's newest Virginia survey finds that voters aren't too keen on a 2016 Bob McDonnell Presidential bid.  Only 17% think he should make a run for the White House to 57% who are opposed to the idea. Even among Republicans just 30% think he should go for it to 37% who think he should not.

The lack of enthusiasm from Republicans about a McDonnell campaign shows through in numbers that find he is only the fourth choice of primary voters in the state to be their next national standard bearer. 17% support Marco Rubio with Chris Christie at 15% and Jeb Bush at 14% also coming in ahead of McDonnell's 12%. After that it's Rand Paul at 10%, Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan at 8%, Bobby Jindal at 3%, and Rick Santorum at 2%.

McDonnell would start out at a deficit in a general election match up with Hillary Clinton in his home state as well. Clnton leads him 48/42, a larger margin of victory than Barack Obama achieved over Mitt Romney in the state last November. Clinton also leads 46/42 over Marco Rubio.

Despite Mark Warner's immense popularity with voters in Virginia, he still runs a very distant third to Clinton when it comes to who Democrats would like to see as their 2016 candidate. 56% pick Clinton to 14% for Joe Biden, 11% for Warner, 3% each for Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren, 1% each for Kirsten Gillibrand and Martin O'Malley, and less than 1% each for Deval Patrick and Brian Schweitzer. Clinton has majority support from liberals, moderates, men, women, whites, African Americans, and voters within every age group.

Full results here

Alison Lundergan Grimes tied with Mitch McConnell Louisville Courier-Journal
Learn from other cities New Zealand Herald
Pryor could benefit from supporting gun background checks KARK 4
41 pecent of Virginia residents pronounce "gif" with a hard g DCist

Warner solid for re-election

Raleigh, N.C.- PPP’s latest Virginia poll finds Barack Obama with a 49% positive to 48% negative job approval rating in the Commonwealth. Senator Mark Warner’s job performance gets positive ratings by 53%-27%. Senator Tim Kaine enjoys a 44%-38% positive spread. Bob McDonnell has 44% positive marks and negative ratings of 37%.

Virginians have favorable opinions of Bill Bolling by a margin of 22%-20%. Eric Cantor elicits unfavorable opinions from 40% of voters and favorable views from 26%. Mark Warner leads Bolling 54%-33% in the former’s reelection race. Warner tops Cantor by 53%-34%. Bob McDonnell trails Warner 39%-50%.

Warner safe for reelection

Mark Warner continues to be by far and away Virginia's most popular politician, and doesn't look like he would face much trouble for reelection regardless of who the Republicans put up next year.

53% of Virginians approve of the job Warner is doing to only 27% who disapprove. He's at 58/25 with independents, and has 26% crossover approval from Republicans. He would have an 11 point lead in a hypothetical match up with Bob McDonnell, 50/39. He would also lead Eric Cantor by 19 points at 53/34 and Bill Bolling by 21 points at 54/33. Cantor continues to be unpopular statewide, with only 26% of voters rating him favorably to 40% who have a negative opinion.

Other findings from Virginia:

Michigan Question Suggestions

Our poll this weekend will be in Michigan. Our main focuses will obviously be the races for Governor and Senate. It seems like we're pretty much set with Rick Snyder v. Mark Schauer for Governor and Gary Peters v. some Republican for Senate so mostly I'm interested in suggestions of Republicans to test for the Senate. But if there are other Democrats we should be testing for Governor and Senate please let us know.

Beyond those two things what would you like to see us test on our Michigan poll? Thanks as always for the good suggestions!

Poll: Southern states back expanded gun background checks Politico
Virginia governor poll: Hopefuls' approval down Politico
David Sirota: Washington's fairy tales Creators Syndicate
Red state polls show support for background checks Hartford Courant
McAuliffe ahead in Virginia governor poll Washington Times
Gun background checks supported in Southern red states Huffington Post
Pryor may need to redeem himself on gun vote Talking Points Memo
Virginia is not for governors American Prospect
The irony behind Obamacare's hipster tax Washington Examiner
Political Notebook: Brief on Tennessee gun poll Knoxville News Sentinel
PPP poll puts McAuliffe in lead Roanoke Times
New poll finds red states support background checks PennLive
McConnell: Fed spending behind economic woes Richmond (KY) Register

McAuliffe leads Cuccinelli by 5 points

Raleigh, N.C.- PPP’s new poll of the Virginia gubernatorial race finds Terry McAuliffe leading Ken Cuccinelli 42%-37%. McAuliffe’s favorability rating is 29% favorable to 33% unfavorable. Cuccinelli’s favorability is solidly negative, with 32% holding positive views and 44% negative. Neither candidate is uniformly popular in his own party. McAuliffe elicits negative or neutral opinions from 43% of Democrats, and 44% of Republicans dislike Cuccinelli or aren’t sure.

“The Governor’s race is shaping up exactly as expected- voters don’t care for either Ken Cuccinelli or Terry McAuliffe,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But at this point they have a bigger problem with Cuccinelli than they do with McAuliffe.”

McAuliffe leads in lesser of 2 evils race

PPP's first look at the race for Governor of Virginia since January finds that as voters get to know the candidates better...more are becoming undecided. That's not the normal trend, but it's also not normal to have an election where voters dislike both candidates five months out.

That's the case here. Terry McAuliffe is not popular, with 29% of voters holding a favorable opinion of him to 33% with a negative one. But we find that Ken Cuccinelli is even more unpopular, with 44% of voters rating him unfavorably to just 32% with a positive opinion. As a result we find McAuliffe leading Cuccinelli by a 5 point margin, 42/37. McAuliffe also led by 5 points on our January poll, but the share of voters who are undecided has spiked from 13% at the start of the year now up to 21%.

Cuccinelli has a big problem with independent voters. Only 25% have a favorable opinion of him to 51% with a negative one, and he trails McAuliffe by 11 points with them at 39/28. Democrats are also a little bit more sold on McAuliffe with 82% supporting him right now, while 78% of Republicans are committed to Cuccinelli.

Shifting gears to the Lieutenant Governor's race, despite the all national media attention he received last week EW Jackson is still pretty much a blank slate to voters in Virginia. 71% of voters have no opinion about him one way or the other. He is unpopular among folks who are familiar with him as 9% rate him positively to 20% with an unfavorable opinion. In hypothetical match ups with Democrats Aneesh Chopra and Ralph Northam he trails by margins of 36/29 and 35/29 respectively.

We polled the Democratic primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General in Virginia by popular demand, but the candidates are still too unknown and the voters too undecided for the results to tell us a whole lot.