Mason-Dixon poll: McDonnell up by 8 points over Deeds
AP photos
Creigh Deeds (left) and Bob McDonnell (right)
Published: October 10, 2009
Republican Bob McDonnell holds a comfortable lead for governor over Democrat Creigh Deeds, lifted by strong support in GOP regions of Virginia and growing appeal among independents, who in recent years have preferred Democrats, a Mason-Dixon poll shows.
McDonnell is favored by 48 percent; Deeds, 40 percent in the poll conducted Tuesday to Thursday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. Twelve percent are undecided.
The Mason-Dixon poll is paid for by newspapers around the state, including The News & Advance.
McDonnell leads Deeds by almost 20 points in the Lynchburg/Southside region, receiving 52 percent support compared to just 33 percent for his opponent. Fifteen percent remain undecided.
McDonnell is ahead in the Richmond area as well as the Southwest, Shenandoah Valley and Southside, three regions where Deeds, a state senator from remote Bath County, hoped to cut into the Republican advantage among rural voters. McDonnell holds a 47-36 advantage in the Roanoke/Southwest Virginia region.
Deeds leads in Northern Virginia, anchor of the Democratic Party, and has a statistically insignificant advantage over McDonnell in Hampton Roads, which includes Virginia Beach, McDonnell’s political base before his election as attorney general in 2005.
The poll suggests that McDonnell is heading into the final three weeks of the race largely unscathed from Deeds’ continuing focus on McDonnell’s controversial 1989 law-school thesis.
Further, the poll depicts an electorate, perhaps because of continuing economic anxiety and contentious policy debates in Washington and Richmond, cooling to the dominant Democratic establishment. For example, independents — key to a Democratic ascendancy that began in 2001 — prefer McDonnell to Deeds, 47 percent to 33 percent.
McDonnell’s thesis, shown by other public polls to be of limited consequence, is sharply critical of working women, unmarried couples, contraception, and gays. McDonnell has disavowed some positions, including his claim that women who work outside the home are a detriment to family.
In the Mason-Dixon survey, McDonnell trails Deeds among women, an important constituency for Democrats, by only 5 percentage points, 40 percent to 45 percent, with 15 percent undecided. Men overwhelmingly favor McDonnell, reflecting a traditional gender preference for Republicans.
A measure of voter distaste this year for Democrats may be the declining job-performance score of departing Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat. It has fallen to 48 percent rating him excellent or good, from 54 percent a year ago.
Elected in 2005, in part, on the popularity of Gov. Mark R. Warner, a Democrat now in the U.S. Senate, Kaine has been criticized by Republicans for putting his duties as chairman of the Democratic National Committee ahead of his obligations as governor, which include balancing the state’s recession-wracked budget.
Though the election is a rematch — McDonnell narrowly defeated Deeds for attorney general four years ago — the current contest is unfolding under different conditions.
At this point in 2005, McDonnell’s lead over Deeds was identical to his current advantage, 8 percentage points.
But now McDonnell’s favorable name recognition, at 45 percent, is nearly twice what it was in his statewide debut in 2005. Also, Deeds’ unfavorable name recognition, apparently because of his attack advertisements, is 7 percentage points higher than McDonnell’s.
Mason-Dixon Polling & Research interviewed by telephone 625 registered voters, all of whom said they are likely to cast ballots Nov. 3. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The sample of respondents, intended as a reflection of the electorate as a whole, was divided almost equally between men and women. Whites accounted for 83 percent; blacks, 15 percent and other racial groups, 2 percent.
- Schapiro is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
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Impris, DITTO Everything you said.
Facts, However, do not not seem to sit well with the liberals who think the Government should make all financially Equal and the Government owes them a living.
“Imprimis… *lol* ...you constantly badger… ...liberals as being members of the socioeconomic underclass.“
Oh, absolutely not. I know better.
Look at a list of the most wealthy Congressman and Senators, any list you like.
The Democrats are WAY on top in terms of earnings. The richest politicians are mostly Democrats. That’s not a “Fox Talking Point”, by the way; it’s a fact.
In addition, the Democrats who submit financial statements (which they have to do as elected officials) on average give LESS to charitable causes than anyone else, even less than the average American. Joe Biden gave a big $300 out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, for relief of the suffering of his fellow man.
And can you imagine the tax accountants for these guys? I’ll bet they’ve got tax loopholes that would make Al Capone’s head spin. Like Sam Donaldson’s “Merino Wool Farm” subsidy ....
greywolf -
So you think that “six figure” earners ought to pay significantly more tax than they do?
We’ve demonstrated in the past that the best wasy to increase tax RECEIPTS (the actual amount of money received by the IRS) is to reduce tax RATES. It’s been demo’ed time and time again, from Kennedy’s time on. Kennedy lowered the maximum tax rate from 95% to 50%, and tax receipts went UP. If you lower tax RATES, you stop penalizing people for working hard and earning more - with lower taxes, they are motivated to earn more, and pay more DOLLARS in taxes as the RATES go down.
Raising the tax RATES never results in an increase of tax RECEIPTS. It’s just a form of satisfying class warfare.
The “Wealthy” aren’t paying their share, eh?
Did you know that the top 2% of earners pay almost 50% of the income taxes received?
That the top 50% of earners (“The Wealthy”) already pay over 90% of all income taxes?
That the lowest 30% of earners (“The Working Poor”) pay NO Federal Income Taxes at ALL?
How are you going to fix that by changing tax rates?
And upping the “corporate” tax rate doesn’t help. The corporation just raises their prices to the consumer to pay for them. CORPORATIONS DO NOT PAY TAXES - ONLY THEIR CUSTOMERS DO!
How will you feel knowing that you (AND all the poor people) are paying higher prices so that the corporations can pay their taxes?
And finally (this may be too many questions in one post) ... Have you ever gotten a job from a poor or middle-class man?
Imprimis… *lol* ...you constantly badger… 
...liberals as being members of the socioeconomic underclass. I happen to be an old white guy who is financially secure. So, no, I wouldn’t set the bar for “the wealthy” as folks having more than I do - or more than I’ve earned in my lifetime.
I think it is the responsibility of those of us who do well to take care of those in society who are less fortunate, regardless of whether we earned out money through working hard or whatever other alternatives you might suggest; regardless of whether we consider them to be the deserving poor or not. How do we decide who is deserving? A drunk that can’t keep a job? Maybe he’s a drunk and can’t keep a job because his country sent him to fight some immoral war in a jungle or desert somewhere. Now is he deserving? There go those darned value judgments again!
I absolutely think that any individual making annual six-figure incomes and any family making 200k ought to pay significantly higher taxes than they currently do. Individual tax rates were slashed in the Reagan years as he sought to put the poor in their proper place… at the feet of the well-off.
I absolutely believe that the maximums ought to be taken off FICA taxes… the sky’s the limit. No more worries about social security and we could probably go a long way toward covering the cost of universal health care.
Corporate taxes absolutely ought to rise. If a company exports jobs overseas, they ought to be taxed at 95% of earnings. Protectionist? When it comes to protecting the interests of our labor force, absolutely.
PS… I don’t feel bullied. I figure I can always hold my own in a battle of wits.
greywolf-
Do you have a definition for “The Wealthy”? Is it in terms of annual income? Net worth? Does it matter if they earned it with hard work?
Is it just something “everyone knows”?
Or is it anyone that “has more than you”?
How many dollars makes a person “wealthy”?
Nonsense. The economy went up for the wealthy. The middle-class and poor only saw their net worth fall in the Gingrich/Bush years.
Hopefully, the election of the Republicans in both Va. and N.J. will make the Socialist Liberals in Washington take note that they could be next, just as was the case in 1994 after Clinton tried to take over our lives. Once that happened, Our Economy went up and our Freedom lived to see another day.
Well, one more bit of bandwidth.
If we “taxed away 100% of the insurance companies’ profits”, then there wouldn’t be a business there, and no insurance companies of any kind.
If you think insurance companies are wasteful and horrible, just wait till the US National Health Service takes over. We’d be BEGGING the insurance companies to come back.
That being said, I think part of the “level playing field” I mentioned does include trust-busting and prevention of price-fixing, as well as going like India has - no malpractice suits allowed. That alone would drop everyone’s medical bills by a bundle.
greywolf -
I don’t think it’s a matter of my being “brighter” than the “average” conservative. Maybe I can just communicate ideas better.
Let me put what I think the differences between your and my beliefs are in a less “polarizing” way.
I believe that there are certain parts of human endeavor that the government should STAY OUT OF. ANY government; because their participation in that endeavor corrupts both the government agency employees PROVIDING the service, and the citizens RECEIVING the service. The government employees become entitled tyrants as their power over people’s basic needs grows; the receivers become helpless dependents of the system, especially after several generations. We can already see some of that happening in some areas where we’ve tried it.
I think that redistributing what has been earned, in the name of “helping the less fortunate”, demotivates both the earners who fund the redistribution, and the people who receive the distribution. The demotivated earners will earn less as it is taken away; the entitled receivers will want more as they see they can get something for nothing. It’s not sustainable; the socialist experiments of the 20th century showed that, at a cost of millions of innocent lives.
We should always help the less fortunate (not the lazy), but it’s not the government’s job to do it; they can only make it worse.
I’m sure you believe differently than that, or you wouldn’t vote the way you do, although I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
Health care, housing, basic food and shelter - it is the government’s job to “provide a level playing field”, to make sure contracts are valid and enforceable, to make sure that institutionalized racism is gone, so that people have the OPPORTUNITY to have these things, NOT to provide these things to anyone who asks. In NO society can everyone always be provided all of these things, not long term.
You and I also believe in absolute standards of right and wrong. You probably think that you do not, but you actually do. It’s just a different absolute standard, based on something you call “internal moral compass” or “societal norms” or something. You probably think of me as a Pharisee and you as a free, tolerant spirit; I see it differently.
Lord knows the Republicans have messed things up to a terrible degree; they are in direct opposition in practice to almost everything they SAY they stand for. But the Democrats are worse, in my view.
That’s enough of the N/A bandwidth for now.
Imprimis, I always enjoy a good debate with you, because you are so much brighter than the average conservative. I always respect your perspectives, whether I agree with your conclusions or not.
I think you have done yourself a disservice with the 40%/40% characterizations, though. I am squarely in the 40% liberal category, as we have discussed before. But I am also an old white guy who is financially secure. It is my belief that we, as a country, could and should do so much more for our citizens (us = you, me, the working poor).
The ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay 40 years ago was a fraction of what it is today. I am not opposed to people who are successful and build financial security for themselves and their families. I am, however, highly opposed to the exterme form of capitalism which sprang from the unbridled deregulation introduced by Reagan and carried to its (il)logical rapacious conclusion by George W Bush.
We ought to provide universal health care coverage. We could fund those who underinsured or uninsured by taxing away 100% of insurance company profits. Just think, if 30% of every dollar spent on health care was NOT going into insurance company profits, we could all be healthier. Not covering pre-existing conditions, not having complete portabilty, not insuring those who need health care the most is simply wrong.
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