State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/13/09)

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Another day brought another upper single digits lead for Republican Bob McDonnell in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Even though, the survey from Rasmussen preceded last night's debate in Richmond, the status quo result combined with the fact that the debate didn't shift the narrative of the race noticeably to make it seem like another typical day in the late stages of this race. And with that debate out of the way, that's one more opportunity lost for Deeds to put a positive spin on his campaign after the longstanding negative attacks on McDonnell for his past writings wore thin with likely voters in recent polls.

2009 Virginia Gubernatorial Race Polling
Poll	Date	Margin of Error	Sample	Deeds	McDonnell	Undecided
Rasmussen	Oct. 12, 2009	+/- 4%	500 likely voters	43	50	6

With the opportunity lost, however, things are very much stuck in a rut in this race. McDonnell is ahead and has been better than 50% in most of the recent polls. The Republican is exactly on that mark in FHQ's averages of the race, with Deeds still struggling to break the 43% here for the first time since July. If this one's going to get close down the stretch, Deeds is going to have to happen on a magic formula and/or find some other controversial McDonnell writings (even then that latter narrative is likely dead). With the enthusiasm gap working against the Democrat in this race, as evidenced by the low projected African American turnout, it just looks as if the tried and true Virginia gubernatorial election trend will continue: Democratic president, Republican wins the governors race (or as we saw four and eight years ago, Republican president, Democrat wins the governors race).

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State of the Race: Virginia Governor (10/12/09)