New PPP Poll: “Virginia’s 13 electoral votes still in Obama’s column”

Public Policy Polling gives us some encouraging news for a change! ...PPP's first look at almost two years from the election suggests otherwise. Just three weeks following the low point of his presidency, Obama leads all four current Republican frontrunners by healthy margins, and has a positive job approval rating in the Old Dominion. PPP's final 2008 poll of the state which nailed the actual 53-46 result reflected an electorate in which Democrats outnumbered Republicans by five points. This electorate, at D +1, is more evenly split, but still gives the president a 50-45 job performance mark, better than PPP has measured him almost anywhere in 2010. Obama posts his strongest leads against Sarah Palin (52-41) and Newt Gingrich (51-40), with smaller advantages over Mike Huckabee (49-44) and Mitt Romney (48-43). The president has at least 91% of his party's votes against any of the Republicans, with no more than 5% defecting...Hey, it's 2 years out and only one poll (albeit by a highly accurate polling outfit), but I'll take it! By the way, Gallup's current Obama job approval numbers are 48%-45%. That's slightly higher, by the way, than both Clinton's and Reagan's job approval numbers at the same point in their presidencies.