I missed these because I was in Florida at the Young Republican convention. Two stories about the GOP in light red states.

First, Marc Ambinder references an old poll that has Hillary up substantially in West Virginia:

A survey of 400 likely voters completed in May by the political consulting firm of Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates finds that if the election were held now 46 percent would be more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate, 24 percent for the Republican candidate while 29 percent are unsure.

The research also shows that if the election were held now Clinton would carry West Virginia in a head to head match-up with McCain or Giuliani. Clinton beats McCain 41 percent to 34 percent with 25 percent undecided and beats Giuliani 42 percent to 36 percent with 22 percent undecided.

I knocked on a bunch of doors in Martinsburg, WV in 2004. The Bush appeal in WV was very simple: God, guns, and abortion. Voters told me that they supported George W. Bush because, for example, "He’s a good man and a good Christian." I have trouble seeing that same kind of feeling in West Virginia for any of the leading GOP candidates except, maybe, Fred Thompson.

On Saturday, WaPo ran a story about Virginia:

Slightly more than half of Virginia residents said they have an unfavorable view of the national Republican Party, including 60 percent of independents, according to the poll.

By comparison, 55 percent of residents, including half of independents, said they have a favorable impression of national Democrats.

These are bad, bad news for the GOP.


Soren Dayton

Soren Dayton is an advocacy professional in Washington, DC who has worked in policy, politics, and in human rights, including in India. Soren grew up in Chicago.

3 Comments

ee2793 · July 10, 2007 at 9:12 PM

What’s the matter, why no mention of the McCain crash and burn?

eye · July 10, 2007 at 10:43 PM

There was mention.

eyeon08.com » More than one kind of swing voter · July 11, 2007 at 2:39 PM

[…] More than one kind of swing voter digg_url = ‘http://www.eyeon08.com/2007/07/11/more-than-one-kind-of-swing-voter/’; digg_title = ‘More than one kind of swing voter’; digg_bodytext = ‘After writing about Virginia and West Virginia polling yesterday, I got thinking about one of the discussions that is not taking place on the internet right now. The question is pretty simple: who will be the swing voters of 2008? Several possible answers. But let me start with some facts, provided by Democrats: In 2000, Gore […]’; digg_skin = “compact”; digg_topic = “politics”; ( function() { var ds=typeof digg_skin==’string’?digg_skin:”; var h=80; var w=52; if(ds==’compact’) { h=18; w=120; } var u=typeof digg_url==’string’?digg_url:(typeof DIGG_URL==’string’?DIGG_URL:window.location.href); document.write(“”); } )() After writing about Virginia and West Virginia polling yesterday, I got thinking about one of the discussions that is not taking place on the internet right now. The question is pretty simple: who will be the swing voters of 2008? Several possible answers. But let me start with some facts, provided by Democrats: In 2000, Gore lost white working class (defined as whites with less than a four year college degree) voters by 17 points; this year, Kerry lost them by 23 points, a swing of 6 points against the Democrats. In contrast, Gore lost college-educated whites by 9 points and Kerry lost them by 10 points–not much change. […]

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