Several new polls of Virginia’s unpredictable primary electorate cast new uncertainty on the Democratic gubernatorial contest and set the stage for an election left up to get-out-the-vote efforts.
The surveys undercut the notion that a single candidate has locked up the nomination with just one week until the Democratic primary.
Of the three polls released in the last two days, none puts former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe — the man many political observers had pegged as the clear front-runner — ahead of his two opponents.
One, from Survey USA, shows McAuliffe trailing former state Del. Brian Moran in vote-rich Northern Virginia by 16 points. Another poll, by Public Policy Polling, puts state Sen. Creigh Deeds in the front by a tight margin.
Deeds last month won the endorsement of The Washington Post, more than doubling his approval ratings in the Washington suburbs, according to the firm.
The third poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, commissioned by the Moran campaign, shows a dead heat among the three candidates and 18 percent of likely voters undecided.
The poll result puts greater weight on each candidate’s ability to pinpoint Democratic voters and get them to the ballot box in a late-spring primary that is expected to have low turnout.
McAuliffe, however, just reported a fundraising haul of $1.8 million in April and May, and he ended last month with more than $1 million on hand. The funds will allow for bigger late-game media buys and stronger voter mobilization efforts than his opponents in the final days of the campaign.
Asked to handicap the race, University of Richmond political science professor Dan Palazzolo said, “My guess is [McAuliffe’s] got the resources and he’s got the advantage right now.”
A major part of those resources come from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which dropped another $200,000 into McAuliffe’s campaign in April.
The donation represents one of the labor union’s largest forays into Virginia politics. It brings AFSCME’s total contribution to McAuliffe’s bid to more than half a million dollars, surpassing his next largest donor, television mogul Haim Saban, twofold.
