Poll shows Moran, Deeds in dead heat

General 1 Minute

A new poll released today shows both Democratic candidates for governor in 2009 lagging the expected Republican nominee. The numbers are interesting: Creigh Deeds, the 2005 AG candidate, trails Bob McDonnell 27-32, while Brian Moran trails McDonnell 27-33. The numbers are virtually indistinguishable, with a large number of undecideds in each matchup.

The poll (pdf) was conducted by Public Policy Polling on June 14th and June 16th. It included 893 likely voters and has a margin of error of +/-3.3%.

I wonder what the matchups would have looked like if the polls had not identified the party of the candidates. I suspect that the undecideds would have been much higher and the 5/6 point lead for McDonnell would have evaporated. In any case, although I don’t put much stock in polls this early, there are a couple of things that jump out at me. First, I think this blows a hole in the idea that because he was run statewide before, Deeds has better name recognition (which is about all this poll is really showing at this point in the game). And second, we Democrats have our work cut out for us for 2009.

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5 thoughts on “Poll shows Moran, Deeds in dead heat”

  2. >Don’t forget that Brian probably has close to 100% name id in the 8th, 10th, and 11th because of his brother…

    Most voters familiar with James Moran are sick enough of him to not want a second helping.

  4. Pfft. Name ID. If my party affiliation was mentioned in the poll, *I* would poll at 25% against Bob McDonnell. This poll doesn’t prove anything, except perhaps that Bob McDonnell hasn’t distinguished himself as attorney general to have a significant advantage over any generic Democrat.

  5. First of all, great blog Vivian. Read it often.

    In response to anonymous comment above from this morning, I think the poll, althought agreed an early poll, shows us quite a bit. As you can see from the internals, Bob McDonnell leads both Creigh Deeds and Brian Moran (Rep. Jim Moran’s brother as mentioned above) in this poll DESPITE the fact that 45% of poll respondents described themselves as “Democrats.” Only 30% of poll respondents described themselves as Republicans.

    The poll most likely greatly oversampled Democrats, yet McDonnell still leads both likely opponents. Also, McDonnell leads Deeds in the Hispanic vote and is 4% of Moran and 5% of Deeds with African-American voters in Virginia. How do you explain that when George Bush received 9% of the African-American vote? Since entering office, my view has been that Bob McDonnell has put partisan politics to the side to bring about solutions. McDonnell also leads Deeds in the 19-29 year old youth vote by 10% and McDonnell leads Deeds by 12% with seniors over 65. This is huge. This poll sets the ground work for showing that Bob McDonnell can and will be a governor for all Virginians – any age, any race, any creed. I agree with Vivian, the DPV may have its work cut out for itself in 2009.

    Thank you for allowing my response,
    Neil

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