These results are pretty much what most of us Democratic bloggers were saying all along, that after the primary was over we'd all come together and unite around our nominee. Now, that's happened, and Bob McDonnell's supposed "lead" - utterly ridiculous since he was unopposed and we were in the midst of choosing ours - has vanished like the mirage it always was (see here for an example of Republicans' premature celebrations).Newly chosen Democratic gubernatorial nominee R. Creigh Deeds leads his Republican opponent, former Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, by six points in the first poll of Virginia voters released since Tuesday’s Democratic primary.Once again, the advantage of primaries over conventions is demonstrated, despite hand-wringing over how "nasty" and "divisive" they are, how we'll just never come back together again, how...blah blah blah. Tell President McCain about that one. :)
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey taken Wednesday night finds Deeds with 47% of the vote and McDonnell with 41%. Two percent (2%) favor of some other candidate and 10% are undecided.
Forty-two percent (42%) say Deeds, a state representative from Bath County, is also more likely to win in November, while 34% give the edge to McDonnell.
P.S. Looks like all the money Bob McDonnell and his national Republican friends have been spending on his behalf hasn't been helping him much.
P.P.S. Deeds is running far ahead of where Tim Kaine was at this point against Jerry Kilgore in 2005, let alone Jim Webb against George Allen in 2006.
UPDATE: Chris Guy makes an excellent point about this poll bounce for Creigh Deeds: "I guess that’s what happens when 7,000 people (a turnout of .00138%) choose your nominees, as opposed to 319,000." Another way of putting it is that Democracy is messy, but in the end it's the strongest system (or, if you're really cynical, the "worst system ever invented, except for all the other ones").
