Deeds gets WaPo endorsement, McAuliffe gets another poll bump

Two developments in the Democratic Party gubernatorial race in the last couple of days have the race going in a couple of different directions.
A Research 2000/Daily Kos poll released on Thursday has Terry McAuliffe gaining significant ground on Brian Moran and Creigh Deeds since the last R2000/Kos poll in early April. And then today we learned that The Washington Post is endorsing Deeds for the party nomination in a bit of a surprise considering the outside-NoVa status of the Bath County state senator.

“In 18 years in the General Assembly, Mr. Deeds has time and again supported measures that might be unpopular with his rural constituency but that are the right thing to do, for Northern Virginia and the state as a whole. He has demonstrated an understanding of the problems that matter most, the commitment to solve them and the capacity to get things done. Mr. Deeds may not be the obvious choice in the June 9 primary, but he’s the right one,” the WaPo editorial board wrote in its endorsement.

Whether Deeds will be able to capitalize on the endorsement is at serious question in light of the poll numbers released a day earlier that had McAuliffe at 36 percent, nearly doubling his support from the April poll done by Research 2000 for Daily Kos, Moran at 24 percent and Deeds trailing the pack at 13 percent.

The April R2000 poll had Moran at 24 percent, McAuliffe at 19 percent and Deeds at 16 percent.

Another poll released this week, from SurveyUSA, had McAuliffe at 37 percent to 26 percent for Deeds and 22 percent for Moran.

– Story by Chris Graham