Virginia is a crucial swing state, and one that Romney supporters continue to assert the Republicans will win. Actually, they assert this because there is no realistic path to 270 EV for Romney if he loses VA's 13 EV. Rasmussen, of course, found VA as a virtual tie, but this was mostly a propaganda piece to support the narrative that Romney is seeing dramatic improvement after winning the nomination. It should be interesting to see how Rasmussen walks this back as we get close to the election, since he gave Obama a nine-point lead one month earlier. For Obama, winning VA opens up several different paths to 270 EV, and it would be very difficult for Romney to block all of them.
PPP's latest survey of Virginia (680 RV, ±3.8% MoE, 4/26 - 4/29) shows Obama ahead 51/43.
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling notes:
Obama's approval rating in Virginia is 50% with 46% of voters disapproving of him. This marks just the 3rd time in our polling of the state since he took office that Obama's hit 50% on that front. Meanwhile Romney continues to be pretty unpopular with only 38% of voters rating him favorably while 52% hold a negative opinion.
Remember, this is weeks after Santorum dropped out. The poll was in the field while Gingrich virtually dropped out. Romney is the nominee, for all intents and purposes. We've been told of the impending surge (or "rally") for Romney once his primary opponents were defeated. It hasn't really materialised. In fact, undecided Republicans are only 2.2% of the electorate in VA. How do you overcome an eight-point lead by picking up 2.2% of the electorate? Magical thinking, that's how. Why is Romney still so unpopular if Republicans are "rallying" to him?
This isn't some one-time phenomenon. Obama has showed a lead in VA of four points or more since 11/10:
Romney has held steady in the low 40's, while Obama has been moving into a slender majority. And this has happened during a bad economy with the GOP mercilessly attacking him. Yet, Republicans think that mercilessly attacking Obama, combined with a bad economy, will win the State for them. How? Magical thinking, that's how.
Tom Jensen again:
Obama's winning 57-33 with voters under 30, which is not unusual. But he's also up 56-37 with voters between 30 and 45 which suggests the GOP has a problem in Virginia not just with the very young but also with the somewhat young. That generational gap speaks to the days of Virginia as a solid red state in Presidential elections probably being over.
How about Ron Paul?
Q6 If the candidates for President this year were
Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Ron
Paul, who would you vote for?
Barack Obama................................................ 50%
Ron Paul ......................................................... 39%
Undecided....................................................... 11%
Ron Paul even loses those who voted for McCain in 2008 by 36/46 to Obama. He loses moderates 61/24 to the President. He loses women 55/35 in a match-up. He loses all age groups from anywhere from 7 to 13 points. Yeah, he's the one to save the day.
In a match-up with Romney, Obama's worst case is a split with voters over 45. He splits Independent voters 44/46 (R +2), and wins women voters 55/38. Male voters aren't particularly strong for Romney, either. He splits them 47/48 (R +1), which is not a good way to overcome a gender gap. Obama also strongly wins over moderates in a match-up 62/28. Moderates were 31% of the sample, meaning that Obama gets 19.2% of the VA electorate here alone.
Comparatively, Romney wins "somewhat conservative" voters (24% of the sample) very strongly in a match-up - 19/73. That accounts for 17.5% of the VA electorate. And "very conservative" voters (17% of the sample) break a bit more strongly for Romney - 13/82. But that's only about 14% of the VA electorate. So winning conservatives gets Romney 31.5% of the electorate, which is the bulk of his support. He really can't squeeze much more out of the conservative base. Undecided "very conservative" voters are less than 1% of the electorate (0.7%) in VA, and undecided "somewhat conservative" voters are only about 2% of the electorate. Even if Romney won over every single undecided moderate, that would only yield 3.1% of the vote. Add it up: 5.8% potential gain if Romney won every single undecided moderate, somewhat conservative, and very conservative voter.
Even with this very unrealistic scenario, Obama would still narrowly win.
With no strong advantage with any age group, either gender, Independent voters, or race, Romney is left with his base. He wins only a slim majority of white voters (51/42) for a mere nine-point lead in this crucial Republican base demographic. His "favourables" with white voters are 44/46, which means he already has 7% of white voters breaking for him who don't really like him. That's soft support.
Obama's favourables with white voters are 41/55, which means that all of Obama's white supporters have a favourable opinion of him. That's strong support, even though it's less than Romney's. Take away that 7% of Romney's white supporters who don't like him, and Obama virtually breaks even with the demographic.
Even though Ann Romney thinks that she scored big over Rosen-gate, Romney's favourables with both genders are underwater. Women in VA see Romney unfavourably (35/44), as do men (42/50). That means that 6% of men break for Romney, although they don't like him.
This poll changes the average in HuffPo's electoral map to a narrow +3 lead for Obama in VA. If Rasmussen's results are removed from the average, Obama would show a 4.4% lead.
If Obama holds all of the States that lean for him (WI, MI, OH, PA, and VA), he wins the election with 282 EV. He could lose every single "toss up" State, and still win. Even in those "toss up" States, Obama has shown leads in most of them in PPP's surveys. For example, PPP polled Obama with a five-point lead in FL (29 EV) less than three weeks ago. And PPP polled CO (9 EV) with 13 point Obama lead less than a month ago.
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