The latest Quinnipiac polling numbers for Virginia are out and…the Senate race remains a dead heat, while Mitt Romney has pulled even with President Obama.
On the latter contest, Romney has steadily erased the President’s advantage in the state:
Republican challenger Mitt Romney wipes out President Barack Obama’s lead in Virginia and the two candidates are deadlocked 44 – 44 percent in the race for the Old Dominion’s 13 electoral votes, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
This compares to a 50 – 42 percent lead for President Obama in a March 20 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University and a 47 – 42 percent Obama lead June 7.
Putting that into a national context, a new CBS/New York Times poll shows the presidential race even as well (though it, like the Quinnipiac poll, measured registered, rather than likely voters).
For comparison’s sake, Quinnipiac had John Kerry up by one over President Bush in mid-July 2004. And we all know how that ended.
But consider, too, that Quinnipiac’s polling ended before the President’s off-teleprompter remarks in Roanoke about business creation went viral.
On the Senate race between George Allen and Tim Kaine…well, we’re in stasis, except for one small point:
“The Senate race remains a dog fight and every indication is it will remain that way until November 6,” said Brown. “Interestingly the vast majority of voters say their votes in the Senate race will be about the candidates themselves and have no relation to their feelings about the president.”
You mean there may actually be Obama/Allen voters?
Obama is not a factor in how they will vote for Senator, 61 percent of Virginia voters say, while 15 percent say their Senate choice is a vote for the president and 19 percent say they are voting against the president.
Okay, so those Obama/Allen and Romney/Kaine voters remain as elusive as Bigfoot. However, I still contend that it’s a safe bet both Allen’s and Kaine’s fortunes are tied the top of the ticket.
And how the ticket tops fare depends upon the economy’s direction, which may depend upon the flapping of butterfly wings in Madrid, Rome and Berlin. Or on which side of the bed Ben Bernanke gets out of on any particular morning.
