Yet another poll has the 5th Congressional District race between Rep. Tom Perriello (D), State Senator Robert Hurt (R), and Jeffrey Clark (I-Tea Party), to be a tossup between Perriello and Hurt. According to The Hill/ANGA, it’s Hurt 45%-Perriello 44% among likely voters. This poll follows one by Custom Strategic Research, which has the race at Hurt 44%-Perriello 43%. Basically, at this point, the only polling outfit which has the 5th CD as anything but a tossup is SurveyUSA, which claims that Hurt leads Perriello by 23 points. That’s becoming more and more of an “outlier” every day.
Meanwhile, as NLS points out, Glenn Nye trails by 6 points to Scott Rigell (42%-36%), despite running a campaign in which he’s distanced himself from…well, basically being a Democrat. In contrast, Perriello has staunchly defended his progressive votes for his district, and it doesn’t seem to be hurting him relative to conservadem Nye. If this result holds on election day, I hope that it does some serious damage to the concept that Democrats have to run away from what makes the Democrats in order to get elected in “swing” districts. As I’ve always believed, voters don’t have to agree with a candidate on everything, as long as they believe the person has integrity and really believes what he or she is advocating. That’s Tom Perriello to a “t.” Glenn Nye? Not so much.
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