Some good news today from PPP regarding the 2013 Virginia Governor's Race:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/...
PPP's first look at the race for Governor of Virginia since January finds that as voters get to know the candidates better...more are becoming undecided. That's not the normal trend, but it's also not normal to have an election where voters dislike both candidates five months out.
That's the case here. Terry McAuliffe is not popular, with 29% of voters holding a favorable opinion of him to 33% with a negative one. But we find that Ken Cuccinelli is even more unpopular, with 44% of voters rating him unfavorably to just 32% with a positive opinion. As a result we find McAuliffe leading Cuccinelli by a 5 point margin, 42/37. McAuliffe also led by 5 points on our January poll, but the share of voters who are undecided has spiked from 13% at the start of the year now up to 21%.
Cuccinelli has a big problem with independent voters. Only 25% have a favorable opinion of him to 51% with a negative one, and he trails McAuliffe by 11 points with them at 39/28. Democrats are also a little bit more sold on McAuliffe with 82% supporting him right now, while 78% of Republicans are committed to Cuccinelli.
Shifting gears to the Lieutenant Governor's race, despite the all national media attention he received last week EW Jackson is still pretty much a blank slate to voters in Virginia. 71% of voters have no opinion about him one way or the other. He is unpopular among folks who are familiar with him as 9% rate him positively to 20% with an unfavorable opinion. In hypothetical match ups with Democrats Aneesh Chopra and Ralph Northam he trails by margins of 36/29 and 35/29 respectively.
We polled the Democratic primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General in Virginia by popular demand, but the candidates are still too unknown and the voters too undecided for the results to tell us a whole lot.
In the primary for Lieutenant Governor 54% of voters haven't made up their mind. Chopra, who has just 42% name recognition even with primary voters leads Northam, who has just 30% name recognition, by a 27/18 margin. - PPP, 5/29/13
T-Mac maybe the farthest thing from our ideal candidate but I'm glad to see him beating the Cooch. By the way, the League of Conservation Voters are stepping up their efforts to defeat Cuccinelli:
It’s an off-year election. This race isn’t making national headlines every day. It’s not even your state. It’s easy to forget how much it matters.
But off-year elections are usually swung by two groups of people: billionaire corporate polluters who can buy a lot of influence and dedicated folks like you who get involved even if Barack Obama isn’t on the ballot.
This race is shaping up to be super-close. The latest polls have Cuccinelli up by a tiny margin.
We win close elections where the environment is on the line. This is what we do. We can win this one, but we can only do it with you.
Donate to the LCV Victory Fund now. Keep climate denier Ken Cuccinelli out of the governor’s mansion:
https://secure3.convio.net/...
This race should matter for everyone: Virginia is one of the swinging-est of swing states. It could easily decide the next presidential election. Governors are involved in big election rules -- they make critical decisions around voter ID laws, who gets to count the ballots, and who supplies the voting machines.
Ken Cuccinelli is a proven climate change denier. He ran a witch-hunt against a professor who taught climate science. I really don’t want him to have any role in deciding who the next President is.
But the Koch brothers want him in power -- and they love off-year elections. They know that every dollar they spend for Ken Cuccinelli will go further than a dollar they spend on someone like Mitt Romney. It’s because there’s usually less turnout. Folks aren’t as fired up. The media’s not watching as closely. And that means they can get away with some shameful stuff.
David Koch is throwing a huge fundraiser for Cuccinelli tonight. He thinks he can buy his way to victory.
I say his plan won’t work. If everyone who cares about the environment (whether they live in Virginia or not) pitched in -- even if it’s just $5 -- we could easily eclipse the Koch brothers’ impact on this election.
So let’s NOT pretend that we can ignore these off-year elections. We won big in 2012 because we all got involved. The Koch brothers know that this year, some of us won’t.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE -- prove them wrong. Don’t hang back. I know you’re not from Virginia, but this race is going to impact every single one of us. And if every single one of us got involved, we’d win.
Donate to the LCV Victory Fund today. Help keep a climate change denier out of the Virginia governor’s mansion. Even $5 helps:
https://secure3.convio.net/...
Thank you for all your support.
All my best,
Gene
Gene Karpinski
LCV Action Fund
You can click here to donate:
https://secure3.convio.net/...