Virginia Senate Is Deadlocked, Obama Crushing Romney

Well, the Kaine-Allen race is a barn-burner.

The Virginia Senate race continues to look like a toss up, with Tim Kaine leading George Allen 46-45.

The thing that might be most surprising about these numbers is Allen running basically even with Kaine even though Mitt Romney trails Barack Obama by 8 points in the state. But Allen has a much better image with Virginians than Romney does. 38% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 38% with a negative one. Those aren't impressive numbers, but they're a lot better than Romney's 38/52 favorability in the state.

Kaine's numbers meanwhile are similar to Obama's, just with a higher level of 'not sures.' His favorability is a +5 spread at 42/37, compared to Obama's approval which is a +4 at 50/46. Kaine and Obama are comparably strong, but Allen's superiority to Romney makes this the much closer race at this stage.

In contrast to the Presidential race in the state, Kaine might actually be the candidate with more room to grow in this contest. Allen is taking 83% of Republicans, while Kaine gets just 77% of Democrats. One number in the poll that jumps out is Kaine leading only 68-21 with African Americans. He seems likely to do far better than that in November.

That's decent news for the Democrats in a "must-win" kind of race to keep the Senate. Here's where it gets awful for the GOP.  

Barack Obama won Virginia by six points in 2008, and if he were up against his almost-certain 2012 opponent Mitt Romney today, he would win it again by a similar margin.  If Romney hopes to close that gap, the state’s governor Bob McDonnell would not help, and there is no question that one potential running mate would hurt: Eric Cantor.  The Constitution Party candidacy of the state’s former congressman Virgil Goode could also draw votes away from Romney, to Obama’s advantage.

Obama tops Romney by eight points, 51-43, up from a six-point (48-42) lead when PPP last polled the state last Demember.  These results come among an electorate that reports voting for Obama by only four points over John McCain four years ago.

Democrats favor Obama, 92-4, up from 88-9 when the last survey.  Romney is also consolidating support with Republicans as he wraps up the nomination, but still has work to do on that front—he leads within his party by an 84-9 spread, up from 79-8.  Romney also has a slim lead with independents, 46-44; they make up a pretty sizeable 29% of the electorate.

McDonnell is a somewhat popular governor, with 46% approving and 36% disapproving of his job performance.  But his presence on the ticket would only help Romney tread water at a 51-43 disadvantage.  Cantor, on the other hand, is unpopular.  27% see him favorably and 41% unfavorably statewide, and he would boost Obama’s standing by four points (52-40).  Obama would also lead Romney by twelve points if Goode makes the ballot in the state.  Goode would pull 5% to Obama’s 50% and Romney’s 38%. 

In other words, Romney's not strong in Virginia, even with McDonnell on the ticket, and that is not good news down the ballot for the U.S. Senate seat at least. George Allen's a bit stronger than Romney though, keeping this race competitive. For Romney to beat the President in Virginia, at least at this time, I think it would take a solid drop in the President's positives- something that may be beyond Romney's command.