Posted on 11/01/2008 10:32:48 PM PDT by Chet 99
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier Published: November 2, 2008
While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama maintains a small lead over Republican candidate John McCain in Virginia, an unusually high percentage of undecided voters is likely to determine the outcome in Virginia, according to a new Mason-Dixon poll.
“Usually you expect the undecided vote to be down around 5 percent going into the final weekend,” said J. Bradford Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. “But here we’ve got 9 percent, which is large for a presidential race and the fact that it’s overwhelmingly white voters is interesting.”
Commissioned by several news organizations including the Herald Courier, the poll shows that 47 percent of likely voters statewide currently support Obama and 44 percent support McCain. However, 9 percent of those polled remain undecided – which Coker said is not unprecedented.
“The closest level of undecided voters in any major Virginia election is 8 percent in the 1989, Doug Wilder-Marshall Coleman governor’s race, which notably involved the first African-American candidate to seriously contest for that office,” Coker wrote in his analysis of the poll results.
Coker’s firm interviewed 645 registered voters statewide Wednesday and Thursday. The margin of error for the poll is 4 percentage points.
The firm also released a report Saturday on candidate favorability ratings in eight battleground states, which include Virginia. Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania join Virginia in leaning toward Obama. Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio are leaning toward McCain. In none of those states, however, does the leading candidate beat the poll’s 4-point margin of error. Pennsylvania joins Virginia with 9 percent undecided voters, which is the highest number of undecideds among those battleground states.
In a telephone interview Saturday, Coker said: “What’s gonna be interesting is if this undecided vote breaks conventionally and splits, or if it all goes one way to Obama or McCain.”
Of undecided voters in Virginia, the poll reveals 93 percent are white and 75 percent do not live in Northern Virginia.
In Virginia’s 1989 gubernatorial race, Coker said, 96 percent of the undecided voters were white, and on Election Day the undecided whites “broke almost all in favor of [the white candidate] Coleman.” “It will be interesting to see if 20 years is going to change things,” he said.
Also in his poll analysis, Coker mentions “the Bradley Effect,” which refers to the 1982 California governor’s race, and is “defined as the tendency of white voters to tell pollsters they were “undecided” rather than admit they were voting against the black candidate.”
The poll, which Coker began in September, shows Obama’s favorable ratings rising steadily from 44 percent to 47 percent, while McCain’s have fallen from 47 percent in early September to 44 percent in November.
ahunter@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
Of undecided voters in Virginia, the poll reveals 93 percent are white and 75 percent do not live in Northern Virginia.
In other words, they're voting for McCain. McCain wins VA 52-48.
Good news. Rove always said he trusted Mason-Dixon and Survey USA more than anyone because it most accurately represented internal polls.
White, and not in Northern Virginia.....hmmmmmm.
Methinks McCain has a chance.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Yep, mark it. VA is McCain country.
CO is the one that worries me a bit.
We win Virginia. One less state for ‘bama to steal from McCain. We get PA, NC, VA, OH (barring voter fraud), FL, NV and I don’t have a good read on CO. We probably get NH too.
I think we win the Bush states minus NM (and perhaps IA) and possibly add PA.
Looks like we’ll be toasting President-Elect McCain Tuesday night.
I think you’re right.
I read here on FR that the undecideds in FL were in the same demographic..
This after RAS was on Fox saying that it ain’t so...
Hmm, 48 campaign hours to go...
I live in Lynchburg VA. McCain signs are all over the place.
Count me in, I don’t want to miss a minute!
Looks like John King at CNN and Chuck Todd at NBC might want to out Virginia back into the undecided color instead of Blue on their wishfull thinking maps.
That's all we need to read in this poll. All we need is for McCain to win 55% of the remaining undecided voters NOT in Northern Virginia and he wins the state, although narrowly.
Just got back from the Richmond Palin rally. Had a great time.
Everybody I talked to said that they know very few white voters over 30 voting Obama.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean...
Thanks!
Are there any websites that compare the polling in 2004 with the actual voting results?
I’m curious to see which polls were most accurate in 2004.
Extremely good news for McCain all around.
All the states were referred to as leaning and within the margin of error. This means Obama has spent 3/4 of a BILLION and not closed the deal.
The fact that the undecideds are larger than average and almost all white, means they will break almost exclusively for McCain.
9% in Va and PA, means McCain probably wins both states. If he has NC, VA, PA, and FLA in his pocket the election is over.
I am trying not to get excited, but all the anecdotal evidence is pointing in the right direction, and I am cautously optimitic now.
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