Polling Outfit that Had Obenshain Beating Herring by 6 Points Has Warner Up 25 Points

That’s right, the same pollsters who had Republican Mark Obenshain beating Democrat Mark Herring by 6 points just days before the 2013 election in which Herring beat Obenshain (in a recount) – definitely no Democratic bias or “skew” there! – are now out with a poll of the Mark Warner (D) vs. Ed Gillespie (R) contest for U.S. Senate. And the results? Not so hot for “Enron Ed.”

Senator Mark Warner is a very strong candidate in the three-way ballot test. The results show Warner (53%) with a 25-point lead over Ed Gillespie (28%) and also reveals that Libertarian Robert Sarvis (5%) is pulling votes away from the Republican (14% remain undecided).

The gap closes slightly in the two-way ballot race where Warner leads by 23 points. When asked “if the election for U.S. Senate were held today, for whom would you vote?”  Fifty-five percent (55%) of the respondents chose Warner, and thirty-two percent (32%) say they would support Gillespie (while 13% were not sure for whom they would vote).

Warner performs very well in the Washington D.C suburbs (56%) and Hampton Roads (61%) and in non-traditional areas for Democrats such as Southwestern Virginia where Warner has 50%, and Gillespie 34%, Sarvis is grabbing only 1% and 16% remain undecided in the region. In Central Virginia where Warner leads with 39%, Gillespie is close behind with 36%, while Sarvis has 7% and 18% remain undecided.

Warner’s candidacy is strengthened by overwhelming support among Democrats (89%) and Blacks (74%). Gillespie’s strongest support comes from whites (38%) and whites over the age of sixty (41%).

I bolded that last sentence, by the way, just to emphasize yet again that the core Republican vote, increasingly, is coming down to white, older (and one could add, “male,” “rural” and “fundamentalist Christian”) voters. The problem with that Republican coalition is that, demographically, it’s shrinking, not growing, at least proportionally compared to Latinos and others who Republicans keep running away from and insulting. Hmmmm.