McDonnell Has 11-Point Lead Over Deeds for Va. Governor

October 5, 2009 4:19 PM | | Comments (0)

Far from suggesting that the Virginia governor's race is tightening, a SurveyUSA poll conducted Oct. 2-4 indicates that Republican Bob McDonnell has a solid lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds four weeks before the Nov. 3 vote.

The poll of gives McDonnell, a former state attorney general, a 54 percent to 43 percent advantage over Deeds, a state senator. Other polls have suggested that McDonnell has a lead over Deeds that is in the single digits.

There's a large gender gap in the race, with McDonnell leading Deeds by 26 percentage points among men and trailing by 2 percentage points among women. Deeds is running only about even with McDonnell among women, despite pounding McDonnell over some strongly conservative views about women and the family that he articulated in a graduate thesis two decades ago.

McDonnell leads Deeds among political independents, 54 percent to 39 percent. Deeds has consistently lagged behind McDonnell among this bloc of swing voters.

The survey also showed Deeds winning by 77 percent to 17 percent among black voters, who the poll says will be 15 percent of the likely voter pool. This actually isn't good news for Deeds: Democrats typically win more than 90 percent of the black vote.

To follow the 2009 and 2010 governors' races, check out CQ Politics' election map.

-- Greg Giroux

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Categories: SurveyUSA

Tags: Deeds, Governor, McDonnell, Virginia

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