2009 VA Gov Electorate Voted 51-43% for McCain; PPP finds 2013 Electorate Giving 45% to Romney

John McCain, seen here with Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell in Oct. '09, wound up being a valuable asset to the campaign. Of the Virginians that voted on election day '09, 51% said they supported him in '08. Photo courtesy of Preston Gannaway & The Virginian-Pilot

Yesterday, Public Policy Polling released their second Virginia Governor poll of the year, with very little changed from the last survey in January. Terry McAuliffe (D) maintains his 5 point lead over Ken Cuccinelli (42-37%), while McAuliffe's net favorability rating fell slightly, and Cuccinelli's rose slightly. Oh, and in a rare move, the number of undecided voters actually increased from 13% to 21% since the last survey 5 months ago.

At the same time, PPP finds the Virginia electorate remains largely unchanged as well. Five months ago, Democrats held a 3 point partisan identification advantage (35% Dem, 32% Rep, 32% Ind), which is now down to one point (34% Dem, 33% Rep, 33% Ind). The racial identification findings from January and now are virtually identical (74% white, 18% black, 8% other), as well as ideological I.D., age I.D., gender, and '2012 vote'.

But how does the PPP electorate compare to the one found by exit polls in 2009, when Republican Bob McDonnell defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds in a landslide?

In most ways, it's similar, with one big exception.

White voters comprised a slightly larger slice of the electorate in '09 (78%) than what PPP finds now (74%), but not enough to significantly alter the poll results. The 2009 race featured an R+4 party I.D., while PPP finds D+1 (again, the difference is not enough to substantially change the survey result if reweighted). PPP also finds a larger gender turnout gap than seen in 2009, as well as a slightly older electorate, but nothing that would change the fundamentals of their topline.

The one exception to the above paragraph can be seen in the crosstab regarding the 2012 vote. Often times, pollsters will ask respondents who they voted for in the previous presidential election, mostly to get an idea of how the pool of survey takers compares to the prior presidential electorate (this question was frequently used in survey analysis in the run-up to the South Carolina 1st Congressional District special election between Mark Sanford and Elizabeth Colbert-Busch to gain insight into the strength of GOP turnout).

As has been noted here before, off-year, non-presidential races have a tendency (though not always) to attract less Democratic friendly electorates than in presidential years (see the 2010 vs. 2008 general election exit polls). But that is not the case in either of PPP's Virginia Governor polls. In both surveys, 49% of respondents say they voted for Barack Obama in 2012, while 45% claim they supported Mitt Romney. 6% say they supported someone else, or do not remember. That's an identical margin to the actual result in Virginia last November, when Obama carried the state 51-47%.

Popular as he may be, Gov. McDonnell would struggle in future statewide races, per PPP

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) has been polled twice by two major polling companies at this early stage in 2013, and both find Virginians APPROVING of his job performance by large margins. Yet despite his strong standing with voters, he would struggle in a 2014 Senate race, or a 2016 presidential race, according to Public Policy Polling.

Quinnipiac University's survey indicated that Gov. McDonnell emerged from the 2012 Presidential race with his best net job approval rating since December of 2011, with 54% of Virginians expressing approval of the job he is doing, while just 27% express disapproval. Public Policy Polling was in the field one week earlier than Quinnipiac, and found McDonnell sporting an impressive 48/35% job approval/disapproval rating, though notably less impressive than Quinnipiac. In fact, as the chart below indicates, Governor McDonnell has maintained stellar approval ratings throughout his entire term in office (which doesn't expire until January 2014), averaging 55/30% across 51 polls over the last 3 years:

Two of the four most frequent pollsters in Virginia  diverged somewhat from the average, with PPP tending to show McDonnell MUCH less popular than Quinnipiac's average, Rasmussen's average, AND Roanoke's average. In fact, Bob McDonnell only manages a +11 average job rating from PPP (46/35%), as compared to the +25 rating from the average of all polls (55/30%).

2013 VA. Gov: With Warner (D) & Bolling (R) out, looks like McAuliffe (D) vs. Cuccinelli (R)

Quinnipiac released a 2013 Virginia Governor's poll on November 14th, showing tight races between the presumed Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe and his two likely Republican opponents, Bill Bolling and Ken Cuccinelli. Though with Bolling indicating yesterday he would not seek the Republican nomination for Governor (and Mark Warner indicating the same), the race seems all but set between McAuliffe and Cuccinelli. McAuliffe was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2009 Democratic primary for Governor, and lost to Creigh Deeds (D) (50-26%), the man who eventually went on to lose to Gov. McDonnell (R) in the general election, 59-41%. Ken Cuccinelli is the state attorney general who earned the reputation among Democrats as a Republican boogey man by filing suit on behalf of his state against Obamacare. This tweet from NBC's Chuck Todd sums up insiders view of a potential McAuliffe / Cuccinelli match-up: