Rigell 45%, Nye 40%, Golden 7%

I’ve been bemoaning the lack of polling in the 2nd Congressional District for a while. There have been reports that both incumbent Glenn Nye and challenger Scott Rigell have had polls in the field but no information has been forthcoming. (Kenny Golden does not have the resources for polling.) I suspect this is for two reasons.

First, neither of them have a significant lead. You can bet if they did, we would have heard about it. And second, I suspect the undecideds are pretty high. I opined on the radio yesterday that I think the undecideds could be as high as 30% at this point.

As it turns out, the NRCC has done a poll.

In Virginia’s 2nd district, Rep. Glenn Nye (D) trailed car dealer Scott Rigell (R) by 5 points. The Congressman took 40 percent to Rigell’s 45 percent. Independent Kenny Golden, a former Republican, took 7 percent. The survey of 400 likely voters was conducted by the GOP firm Ayres McHenry & Associates Sept 23 to 26 and had a 4.9 point margin of error.

So Rigell’s lead is just outside the margin of error, not commanding by any means. And this poll shows 8% undecided, below what I anticipated but enough to swing the election.

So yeah, the race is a toss up. The winner is going to be the guy who can get his voters to the polls.

One of the difficulties this year for candidates is trying to figure out what the electorate will look like on November 2. It’s been a long time since the Congressional races were the top of the ticket in Virginia: the last time was 1998, when the Congressional districts looked a little different. (2008 was a presidential year, 2006 had a Senate race, 2004 was a presidential year, 2002 had a Senate race, 2000 was a presidential year.)  I don’t know what the candidates are doing as far as targeting is concerned. What I do know is that I’ve gotten just one piece of mail so far this cycle – and that was from the RPV on behalf of Rigell.

UPDATE: Here’s another poll in the 2nd CD. This one is also by a Republican polling firm and shows Rigell way ahead of Nye – 48.6% to 34.5%. They didn’t poll Golden, as the poll shows 16.9% undecided.