George Washington Masonic National Memorial, Alexandria, VA
Quinnipiac. 2/1-6. Registered voters. MoE ±2.5%; for GOP primary ±4.2%. (
12/13-19 in parentheses):
Tim Kaine (D): 45 (42)
George Allen (R): 44 (44)
Undecided: 9 (12)
Almost all polling of the Virginia Senate race, between Democratic ex-Gov. Tim Kaine and Republican ex-Sen. George Allen, has shown a virtual tie. Today's release from Quinnipiac is, well, no exception. However, there's a positive trend at work here, with a net gain of three points for Kaine, turning a 1-point deficit into a 2-point lead. (I don't know if we can quite call that a trend yet;
PPP had Kaine opening up a 47-42 lead in their last poll of the race, but that was back in December, around the same time as the previous Quinnipiac poll that gave Allen the small lead.)
Barack Obama (D-inc): 47 (42)
Mitt Romney (R): 43 (44)
Undecided: 5 (7)
Barack Obama (D-inc): 51 (46)
Newt Gingrich (R): 37 (41)
Undecided: 5 (6)
Barack Obama (D-inc): 49 (--)
Rick Santorum (R): 41 (--)
Undecided: 5 (--)
Barack Obama (D-inc): 47 (--)
Ron Paul (R): 40 (--)
Undecided: 6 (--)
I'm more inclined to think there's some slight but real movement in the Dems' direction in the Old Dominion because it's even more pronounced at the presidential level, with Barack Obama sporting a net gain of six points in the same sample, turning a 2-point deficit against Mitt Romney into a 4-point lead. (There's a clearer explanation for the Obama movement, between perceptible economic improvement over the last few months and Romney finally getting turned into a pinata, thanks to the GOP primary; Kaine might be riding those coattails for a smaller gain.) Qpac also polled the GOP primary, though remember Virginia only features Mitt Romney and Ron Paul on the ballot. Romney leads Paul 68-19 there, though a hypothetical version of the whole field went Romney 37, Gingrich 27, Santorum 18, Paul 12 (which seems consistent with Virginia, through the magic of demographics, increasingly turning into the southernmost northeastern state instead of the northermost southern state).