Today’s Washington Post poll has bad news for Virginia Republicans regardless of whether they support Jim Gilmore or Tom Davis:
Former Virginia governor Mark R. Warner holds a 30-point lead over his two potential Republican rivals in next year’s U.S. Senate race, boosting Democrats’ chances of expanding their congressional majority and highlighting the party’s ascendancy in the state, according to a new Washington Post poll.
Warner, a Democrat who announced his candidacy last month, would get more than 60 percent of the vote in a hypothetical matchup against Rep. Thomas M. Davis III or former governor James S. Gilmore III, the two Republicans who have indicated they are considering running against him.
The Senate race will unfold against the backdrop of next year’s presidential campaign, and the poll suggests that the state’s 13 electoral votes could be up for grabs. By a margin of 11 percentage points, Virginians would prefer that the next president be a Democrat, indicating that even a reliably red state could flip in 2008.
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In the Senate race, Warner leads Gilmore 61 percent to 31 percent, a 2 to 1 margin replicated in nearly every region of the state. Warner leads Davis 63 percent to 28 percent. In vote-rich Fairfax County, where Davis argues that he would have more appeal than some recent statewide GOP candidates, Warner is up by 24 percentage points over the congressman (57 percent to 33 percent).
And, on the Presidential side, Virginia voters pretty much mirror the rest of the country right now:
In the campaign for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) outpace their rivals, according to the poll.
Clinton leads all other Democrats by a 2 to 1 margin or more, despite Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s early and vocal support for Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). About half of Virginia Democrats would vote for Clinton, compared with one-quarter who say they support Obama and 11 percent who favor former senator John Edwards (N.C.). All other Democrats are in the single digits. Virginia’s presidential primary is scheduled for Feb. 12.
Clinton’s lead in Virginia is fueled by a prevailing sense that she is the strongest leader in the Democratic field (59 percent of Democrats polled said so) and that she is also the most electable (65 percent).
Clinton has wide leads over Obama among men and women and among whites. The race is more competitive among African Americans, with 49 percent preferring Clinton and 37 percent, Obama.
In the GOP contest, 34 percent support Giuliani and 20 percent back Sen. John McCain (Ariz). Fred Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, polled at 19 percent. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is at 9 percent, and the rest of the field is in the low single digits.
With Mark Warner on the ticket, the Democrats are in pretty good shape to take away a Senate seat in `08 and, possibly, put Virginia in the Democratic column for the first Presidential election since 1964.
