A new Public Policy Polling survey of Virginia voters has Democrat Barack Obama with an eight-point lead over likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
The Obama lead over Romney was at 51 percent-to-43 percent in the PPP survey. Public Policy Polling has had Obama leading Virginia by similar margins for much of the past year.
Obama won Virginia over Republican nominee John McCain by a six-point margin in 2008. He was the first Democratic nominee to win the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Another kernel from the PPP poll: The addition of Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell to the GOP ticket would do nothing to move the meter in Romney’s direction. The survey had Obama ahead of a Romney/McDonnell ticket by the exact same 51 percent-43 percent margin.
Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor, who is getting some mention as a possible wild-card pick to run with Romney on the national ticket, would push Romney’s numbers down significantly in Virginia. Obama would beat a Romney/Cantor ticket by a 52 percent-to-40 percent margin in Virginia, according to PPP, with Cantor’s negative net approval (27 percent favorable/41 percent unfavorable) as the anchor.
Another wild card: The candidacy of former Republican congressman Virgil Goode as a third-party candidate. Goode currently pulls 5 percent of the vote in a three-way race with Obama (50 percent) and Romney (38 percent), and though it would be unlikely that Goode would get that much of the vote on Election Day, any traction that he would get from the far right would make it that much more difficult for Romney to pull the upset in the Old Dominion.
More online: www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/05/obama-leads-in-virginia.html.
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