SurveyUSA is out with its latest approval ratings for governors and Senators. Here are the results for Virginia.Tim Kaine: 53%-40% (+13 points net approval), up 2 points from 50%-39% (+11) in the last SurveyUSA poll. Regionally, Kaine is wildly popular in NOVA (62%-26%), but not so much in Shenandoah (48%-46%) or Central Virginia (49%-48%). Overall, I'd say that these numbers qualify as "not bad, not great." It will be interesting to see what the numbers look like next month, and specifically whether or not the Republican attacks on Kaine on the travel records issue will have an impact. I'm skeptical.
Jim Webb: 48%-36% (+12), up 4 points from 48%-40% (+8) in the last SurveyUSA poll, but still under 50%, which is not where you want your approval numbers to be. Also, I'd point out that it's not just because all U.S. Senators' approval numbers are down. Check out the junior senator from Virginia, for instance.
Mark Warner: 65%-28% (+37 points), holding steady from 64%-27% (+37) in the last SurveyUSA poll. Warner remains by far the most popular politician in all regions of the Commonwealth, including 65%-27% in southeastern Virginia, 68%-21% in NOVA, 59%-35% in central Virginia and 68%-27% in Shenandoah. We'll see if these numbers start to change as Warner takes a series of tough votes on health care, energy, environment, etc.
P.S. One more: Barack Obama is at 59%-36% (+23 points) approval in Virginia, making him the second-most popular politician in the Commonwealth. Obama's popularity is down 1 point from the last SurveyUSA poll a month ago, when he was at 60%-36%. Not too shabby at all, which means that Republicans are going to have an extremely hard (impossible?) time tying Creigh Deeds to Barack Obama in a negative way like we did with Jerry Kilgore and George Allen to George W. Bush. To the contrary, it's much more likely that we'll be seeing a lot of President Obama this fall, campaigning for Creigh Deeds and other Democrats here in Virginia. I can't wait!
