cross-posted from Blue Commonwealth
we are now less than 5 weeks from the primary. Yesterday saw the release of dueling polling numbers, a public poll from PPP (for which cross-tabs are available, and where there is previous poll to provide information on trends), and and internal poll for the Moran campaign done by Greenberg, Quinlan, Rossner, for which as far as I know no cross-tabs have been released. Both polls show McAuliffe ahead, the Moran poll by a narrow 2% margin, the PPP poll by a 10 point margin that represents a significant swing from the poll at the end of March which showed Moran 4 points up. To date the McAuliffe campaign has not released its internal polling numbers.
While I will offer a discussion of what the numbers means, and what the various camps are saying, it is my belief that the state of Virginia, the governor's race, is now that McAuliffe is in the clear lead, with the onus on the Moran campaign to change the dynamic.
First, let's note that there is a difference between the universe being sampled by the two polls. The Moran poll uses a likely voter screen (not disclosed), whereas as the PPP poll is of registered voters. Second, McAuliffe has been on the air in several area of the states, whereas Moran has yet to do over the air ads, and Deeds just began his advertising, albeit after the completion of both polls.
The Moran campaign is prepared to argue that once they begin to advertise, they will easily catch up in the top line head to head numbers. Further, they want people to discount the results of the PPP poll on the grounds that they claim it inflates the universe, that McAuliffe has higher negatives (true, but not at a crippling level for a 3-way race), and that McAuliffe does worst in NoVa (true) which is Moran's strong area, and which they claim will carry the day for the Alexandrian on June 9. They claim the PPP poll understates the proportion of the turnout that will be from NoVa (area code 703) - the sample in March was 28% and in May 29%, and some advocates will point at the turnout in the 2006 Senate primary between Webb and Miller where it was 42% from NoVa - now, I do not know if that analysis included those portions of area code 540 that could also be considered NoVa, but for sake of argument let's for now grant some validity to that argument.
Here's the thing - McAuliffe has substantial leads among African Americans, who in the PPP poll make up 30% of the March sample and 32% of the May sample. Moran supporters argue that absent an African-American on the ballot that the turnout will not have so large a percentage of Africa-Americans. Traditionally that has been true, but will it be true now?
I look at the crosstabs in the two PPP samples and see nothing egregiously different that explains the 14 point swing in top line numbers. Regardless of the universe being sampled, there clearly was movement towards McAuliffe. That should be expected, given that Terry was on the air and Moran and Deeds were not. It seems much of the movement towards McAuliffe was coming from previously uncommitted voters. And there is still volatility, with voters willing to change their minds.
And certainly that Deeds is now advertising and I expect that Moran will be soon means the remaining uncommitted will be subject to suasion from all sides.
But remember - McAuliffe will continue to advertise, he has far more cash available than either of his opponents, in fact than both of them put together. He has about 100 paid staffers in more than ten offices around the state (his competitors combined have about half that number). His campaign is reporting that VOLUNTEERS made 20,000 phone calls last week.
And then there is what you can read in this blog post from PPP, from which I noteL
n our poll this week though McAuliffe's supporters actually came out as the most solidly committed to their candidate. 64% of respondents who said they were planning to vote for McAuliffe said they would definitely do so. 55% of Moran's supporters said that and 52% of Deeds' were.
If you work out what that means for their total sample, it looks like this
If you break down the numbers with just the voters who are solidly committed McAuliffe is at 19%, followed by Moran at 11%, and Deeds at 7%.
That does not make it a done deal, as 36% are undecided and 27% could change their minds.
Not everyone goes into the internals of polls. When SUSA came out with a poll that had McAuliffe ahead, some people were dismissive, and pointed at the previous PPP poll. But now the current PPP poll has confirmed what SUSA showed, movement in the direction of McAuliffe.
And if PPP is to be believed, you might want to consider the breakout ideologically, as to the favorability ratings of the candidates:
Liberal Moderate Conservative
Deeds 34-10 36-11 16-11
McAuliffe 53-21 40-29 16-21
Moran 45-11 38-12 27-8
I find it interesting that the only ideological groups in which Moran's favorability rating is higher than that of McAuliffe is self-described conservatives.
I am far from being at the point of predicting the outcome of this race. None of us knows the model of turnout - how large, geographical distribution, demographic distribution. Virginia Dems last had a contest primary for Governor in 1977. In 2005 with a contest for LT Gov the turnout was 115,000, while the Republicans got 170,000 in their contested Lt Gov race, and 175,000 in their not so contested governor's race. They have no statewide primaries, although there are a few primaries for House of Delegate races among Republicans. We do not register by party in Virginia, so anyone who is registered can vote in the Democratic primary. We do not have totally free early voting, but Northern Virginia jurisdictions have been pretty flexible in accepting excuses for absentee (early) voting.
So how large will the turnout be? The lower the turnout, the more likely it is to be to Moran's advantage, among more traditional Democratic primary voters (such as those who would get through the likely voter screen used by his pollster), where his work in electing Dems to the House of Delegates is known and respected. At 135,00-150,000, I would have no trouble predicting a Moran victory.
How many African-Americans will turn out with no African-American running statewide? This is critical, because according to PPP the advantage McAuliffe has in this group over Moran and Deeds is an astounding 37-15-10.
But I expect the turnout to be much larger. The question is how much. Bob Holsworth had an interesting piece at his Virginia Tomorrow blog, I noted this paragraph:
The Moran camp believes that the turnout on June 9th is likely to be quite low. (perhaps around 150,000-250,000 voters) I would guess that a lot of voters who participated in the Presidential primary of 2008, but not in the Senate primary of 2006 or the Lieutenant Governor primary of 2005 get excluded from their model.
That caught my attention, because I think Moran has real trouble winning in a turnout at 250,000, and if it gets much larger than that, it is likely to be because of new voters being drawn in, and those would more likely be those shown in the PPP polling and excluded by the GQR poll for Moran.
My sense is that the attempt by the Moran campaign to use their poll numbers to distract from and/or undercut the impact of the PPP poll will not have much impact. For one thing, even their own poll shows them trailing. For another, their poll makes the 3rd consecutive poll showing McAuliffe ahead, and for most media and casual observers that will be the takeaway.
One other thing that I have to discuss. There is a perception, seemingly growing, that the Moran campaign is more negative. One saw it in Brian's close in the debate at Virginia Tech, about which there was some pointed commentary. Yesterday the sponsors of the previous debate at William & Mary complained that the Moran campaign violated the terms of the debate by using footage from that debate in a You Tube ad that some have characterized as an attack piece. The Moran campaign took the video down and was reworking it without the footage, but the incident drew some notice and not just from bloggers committed to Moran.
McAuliffe has a large personality. He speaks in large terms. That can annoy some people, it can also inspire some others. He is drawing some support in interesting places, such as receiving an endorsement from the Virginia League of Conservation Voters. But he does have some baggage. And he has taken some fire from Creigh Deeds as well as from Moran. So far McAuliffe has not himself returned fire with attacks, although there are surrogates, particularly online, more than willing to do so on his behalf.
McAuliffe may also be helped or hurt by a piece forthcoming in the New York Times Magazine, on which Adam Nagourney, chief political writer, has been working for some time.
What of Creigh Deeds, a fundamentally decent man who had Doug Wilder not sat on his hands four years ago would have defeated Bob McDonnell for Attorney General despite having been outspent 2-1, and thus would have been unopposed for the gubernatorial nomination this time? It is hard to come up with a scenario in which he can win, unless the direct contest between Moran and McAuliffe gets truly nasty on both sides. If McAuliffe refuses to engage, it is hard to see a scenario of votes shifting to Deeds, except possibly from some people who had been leaning towards Moran who are turned off by the perceived negativity.
So let's bring it to a close. First, let me point out that I have not decided for whom to vote, although I am pretty much down to two candidates at this point. There is one debate remaining, I want to see how the campaigns function, and I am still waiting to here complete positions on issues from several of the candidates. I will vote on or before May 29, as I will be out of state June 1 until sometime on primary day, and don't want to risk missing voting if a flight gets cancelled. Once I make up my mind I will announce and explain my rationale, because then I will no longer be neutral.
As a neutral observer, what I see is a race moving in McAuliffe's direction, with not that much time to change the dynamics all that much, perhaps 2 to 3 weeks. If the current trends are not at least stopped, then perhaps the question might be if one of the other candidates, logically Deeds, is perceived as unable to win, might some of his support break to the other non-McAuliffe candidate in a stop-Terry move, an anyone but Terry effort? Perhaps, but quite frankly I do not see that happening. I think it would be more likely to see Moran supporters willing to support Deeds to stop McAuliffe than to see Deeds supporters abandoning Creigh for any reason - many of them are fiercely loyal and will vote for him even if they believe he will lose badly.
June 9 is primary day. The race seems to be moving towards McAuliffe. It is not YET a done deal. But if the dynamics do not change significantly and soon, it is likely that Terry McAuliffe will be the Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia.