Another poll shows Bob McDonnell with a commanding lead in the Virginia Governor’s race:
Republican Bob McDonnell holds a comfortable lead for governor over Democrat Creigh Deeds, lifted by strong support in GOP regions of Virginia and growing appeal among independents, who in recent years have preferred Democrats, a Mason-Dixon poll shows.
McDonnell is favored by 48 percent; Deeds, 40 percent in the poll conducted Tuesday to Thursday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. Twelve percent are undecided.
The Mason-Dixon poll is paid for by newspapers around the state, including The News & Advance.
McDonnell leads Deeds by almost 20 points in the Lynchburg/Southside region, receiving 52 percent support compared to just 33 percent for his opponent. Fifteen percent remain undecided.
McDonnell is ahead in the Richmond area as well as the Southwest, Shenandoah Valley and Southside, three regions where Deeds, a state senator from remote Bath County, hoped to cut into the Republican advantage among rural voters. McDonnell holds a 47-36 advantage in the Roanoke/Southwest Virginia region.
Deeds leads in Northern Virginia, anchor of the Democratic Party, and has a statistically insignificant advantage over McDonnell in Hampton Roads, which includes Virginia Beach, McDonnell’s political base before his election as attorney general in 2005.
The poll suggests that McDonnell is heading into the final three weeks of the race largely unscathed from Deeds’ continuing focus on McDonnell’s controversial 1989 law-school thesis.
Further, the poll depicts an electorate, perhaps because of continuing economic anxiety and contentious policy debates in Washington and Richmond, cooling to the dominant Democratic establishment. For example, independents — key to a Democratic ascendancy that began in 2001 — prefer McDonnell to Deeds, 47 percent to 33 percent.
It’s looking less and less likely that the Deeds campaign will be able to put forward anything resembling a comeback.
