State of the Race: Virginia Governor (6/18/09)

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Of all the lines I'd imagine penning, this would probably not have been at the top of my list, but here goes:

That's more like it. An independent poll in the Virginia governor's race from Daily Kos.

When compared with the Anzalone Liszt poll conducted on behalf of the Democratic Governors Association that was released a couple of days ago, though, the Kos/R2K poll withstands the independence test better. A new poll, then, means FHQ must recalculate the average standing of the candidates in the governor's race in the Commonwealth of Virginia. And what do you know? The deadheat from a week ago is still a deadheat today. But Bob McDonnell edges past Creigh Deeds here (and the map above becomes ever so slightly more reddish purple than it was).

Our typical caveats remain, however. There are still but five polls total in this race (since the point at which Deeds became viable following the Washington Post endorsement), and that means we are still likely to see some "wild" fluctuations. With the "Deeds leads" poll not receiving the full weight of the most recent poll, the full body of evidence outside of the most recent poll continues to favor McDonnell overall. That should be said with a note of caution, though. This is still a close race; not the virtual tie from a week ago, but still very much within the margin of error.

That said, I'll add one more helpful graphic now that we have a couple of averages in the books. As we saw recently in the 2012 presidential primary poll tracking, two points on a graph aren't terribly exciting. But you have to start somewhere. To keep track of the ebbs and flows of the FHQ averages over the course of the campaign is something that I think will prove instructive for us all in both the New Jersey and Virginia contexts. [And this is something that would have been helpful during the presidential race a year ago on a state by state basis. When I have more time on my hands for combing back through that data, that may be something I'll add here in the future.] The graph really tells the tale -- at least as it is scaled with the inclusion of the undecideds. This is just a close race.

It should continue to be fun to track.

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