With the culmination of last week's Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia, the key players in the high-profile races for the 2009 election cycle are now known. With the possible exception of the Virginia Democrats, of course, the starting lineups have been known for a while. But with the primary schedule now in the rearview mirror, we can look ahead to November, and examine what (if anything) the current polling tells us about what to expect in November.
First, the obvious and obligatory caveat: elections are a volatile thing. Whatever tea leaves we can attempt to read in June may be completely invalid by July, to say nothing of November. So, expect this analysis to serve as the jumping-off point, and not the final word.
VIRGINIA
At one point in the year, Republicans were crowing about a likely pick-up in Virginia. They had managed to clear the field for their preferred candidate, former state Attorney General Bob McDonnell. He had modest, but real, polling leads over all three potential Democratic candidates, according to Daily Kos' pre-primary survey.
Then, the once-competitive Democratic primary became a runaway. And instead of Terry McAuliffe, the NoVa resident by way of upstate New York, the Democratic nominee was instead Creigh Deeds, who hailed from rural west-central Virginia.
Deeds rocketed out of the gate, with a post-primary poll from Rasmussen showing that Deeds, once down fifteen points in the Rasmussen poll, now was staked to a six-point advantage (47-41).
Some of this, to be sure, is afterglow from his impressive and decisive primary win. But there is some reason to believe that Deeds' current poll position is more indicative of his actual strength in the race than the less audacious poll numbers he had last month.
Take, as an example, Deeds' performance with Democrats:
PRE-PRIMARY POLLING (DEMOCRATIC PREFERENCE)
Daily Kos/Research 2000 Survey, May 18-20, 2009
Creigh Deeds (D) 56%
Bob McDonnell (R) 16%
Not Sure/Other 28%
POST-PRIMARY POLLING (DEMOCRATIC PREFERENCE)
Rasmussen Survey, June 10, 2009
Creigh Deeds (D) 89%
Bob McDonnell (R) 8%
Not Sure/Other 4%
Looking just at Democrats, it is pretty clear that the aberration was BEFORE the primary, rather than after it. Even the most optimistic Republican could not reasonably expect that the Democratic nominee would lead Democrats by just forty points.
In effect, McDonnell's early double-digit advantage over Creigh Deeds was based almost solely on the fact that Democrats were a far greater proportion of the undecided voters than were Republicans. In all probability, these were Moran and McAuliffe supporters who were staying on the fence out of loyalty to their preferred horse in the race.
The long primary season might have also paid a dividend for Creigh Deeds with Independent voters, as well.
Looking solely at the Rasmussen polling on the race, we see that in April, Deeds only had the support of 18% of Independents, a group with which he trailed McDonnell by 22 points (lots of undecideds, as always, with the Indies).
Fast forward to this week: after having the airwaves essentially to themselves, the Democrats managed to eat into McDonnell's sizable edge with Independent voters. Now, with what Rasmussen terms "unaffiliated voters", the McDonnell edge is down to just seven points. Deeds, at 36% of the Independent vote, has doubled his support with that group in just seven weeks.
This race, by all rights, will be a toss-up in the Fall. But the Republican Party was put on notice this week. While history might be on their side (the party out of the White House has, virtually without exception, won the governorship of Virginia), the polls no longer are. It appears that Creigh Deeds might be uniquely positioned to retain this office for the Democrats.
NEW JERSEY
Unlike Virginia, which saw a pretty decisive shift in the polling over the course of the primary season, New Jersey has remained remarkably steady. On paper, this is very good news for the GOP nominee, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie. Two post-primary polls (one from Quinnipiac, the other from Rasmussen) gave Christie a lead over incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine outside of the statistical margin of error.
However, a Republican declaration of victory here might be premature as well, despite these very distressing numbers for Team Corzine.
For one thing, there is the fact that the GOP appears to have nominated an essentially blank slate. Even after a drawn-out primary with conservative insurgent candidate Steve Lonegan, Chris Christie is still something of an unknown quantity. According to the Q poll, Christie has a pretty laudable 36/16 split on his favorabilities. The one cause for concern for team Christie: this means that nearly half of the electorate in New Jersey does not hold a set opinion of their nominee.
Rasmussen defines things a bit differently, and as such they have a far smaller corps of truly uncertain voters on Christie (just 12%). However, from Rasmussen we can see that opinions on Christie are very soft--only 27% of the New Jersey electorate have strong opinions about him one way or another, and they were evenly split. In Virginia, by contrast, while only a slightly larger group (31%) had strong opinions of Creigh Deeds, those with strong opinions were far more likely to hold strongly POSITIVE opinions of Deeds than strongly negative ones.
The bottom line--given how little of Christie's support is calcified, Corzine will have time (and one can readily presume, resources) with which to define his challenger.
It might not be enough--Corzine is an incumbent state executive at a time when Governors of both parties are, by and large, taking on water big time in the polls.
However, those GOPers gloating about a lead in the upper single digits for Christie might want to remember one small fact of Garden State politics--come October and November, New Jersey has a peculiar habit of coming home to the Democrats.
Some claim this is myth, but there is ample evidence from last year's elections.
Look for example, at the disparity between September and October polling in last year's presidential race:
Net Democratic Lead--September N.J. Polling (10 polls): 7.4%
Net Democratic Lead--October N.J. Polling (12 polls): 15.7%
Obama defeated McCain in New Jersey by 15.5%.
Wait, a loyal Republican might say. This is nothing more than a reflection of the fact that McCain's campaign imploded in late September, staking Obama to that October lead.
Fine. With that in mind, let's look at the disparity between September and October polling in last year's U.S. SENATE race between Democrat Frank Lautenberg and Republican Dick Zimmer.
Net Democratic Lead--September N.J. Polling (8 polls): 9.8%
Net Democratic Lead--October N.J. Polling (11 polls): 15.1%
Lautenberg defeated Zimmer in New Jersey by 14.1%.
The numbers do not lie. This is not an urban legend. New Jersey voters may be frustrated with the Democratic Party, but they eventually decide that the alternative (electing Republicans) is less appetizing.
Given that Christie has shown signs that he is a pretty standard right-winger, it is not hard to imagine New Jersey voters forsaking their own trepidation about Corzine and returning him for another term.
The most probable outcome is a split decision in the two governor's races in the Fall, seeing how both of them are, at day's end, a coin flip. But what was once unthinkable is now at least plausible--the Democrats could emerge from the 2009 cycle with their formidable winning streak still intact.