Tim Kaine had held a modest lead in the last several Public Policy Polling surveys of Virginia voters looking at the U.S. Senate race.
Now that modest lead is gone.
Kaine, a Democrat, and Republican George Allen are tied at 46 percent each in the latest PPP poll, which was released on Thursday.
The July PPP survey had the race at Kaine 46, Allen 44, and Kaine had held a small lead over Allen in each of the previous four polls conducted by the organization.
The race is even at all demographic levels. Each gets little crossover support – Kaine is getting just 4 percent of Republicans, and Allen gets 6 percent of Democrats – and their respective leads among men (Allen 53-40) and women (Kaine 50-39) are nearly identical.
The favorability ratings for the two also match well – Allen at 43 percent favorable/41 percent unfavorable, Kaine at 45 percent favorable/44 percent unfavorable.
Other notes from Virginia:
-Bob McDonnell’s approval rating this month is 48% with 33% of voters disapproving of him. Those are the best numbers PPP has found for him since last July. He’s particularly strong with independents, at a 53/29 spread.
-Mark Warner continues to be Virginia’s most popular politician with 50% of voters approving of him to 27% who disapprove. Warner has more crossover support than any of his colleagues with 29% of Republicans giving him good marks. He has almost identical numbers to McDonnell with independents at 54/29.
-The Virginia Senate race would have been a challenge for Democrats this year even if Jim Webb had decided to run for reelection. Voters are evenly divided on his job performance with 37% approving and 37% disapproving of him. He’d probably be in a similarly close race with Allen if that had been the match up.
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Chris Graham
