Terry McAuliffe Leads Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia Polls

With the Virginia gubernatorial race looming on Tuesday, a poll released late Sunday and one released Monday morning find Republican candidate state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is a solid underdog against Terry McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Quinnipiac University unveiled a poll on Monday morning which shows McAuliffe with 46 percent and Cuccinelli with 40 percent, while Libertarian Robert Sarvis takes 8 percent.

"Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli made the race to become Virginia's next governor interesting, said Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. But barring a late surge of Republicans returning to the fold and independents jumping on the GOP train, Terry McAuliffe has a small but steady lead that is formidable entering the final day of the campaign. All year long, Cuccinelli has suffered from an inability to unite the Republican base, and if today's data holds true for another 24 hours, analysts may look back at his 85 percent of the GOP vote as his fatal flaw, while McAuliffe was getting 93 percent of the Democratic vote,"

Brown insisted Sarvis supporters can play a major role in shaping this race.

"Libertarian Robert Sarvis continues to get almost one in 10 votes, apparently taking many of the Republican and independent votes Cuccinelli needs," Brown said. "If Sarvis' supporters stay with him in those numbers it is difficult to see where Cuccinelli can find enough votes to turn his fortunes around.

"To make a comeback in the final hours, Cuccinelli will need to take virtually all the undecided; peel off a few percent from Sarvis and hope that his turnout operation is superior to that of McAuliffe, Brown said in conclusion. Obviously that is a long-shot formula for victory. The good news for Cuccinelli is that his supporters seem more enthusiastic about their guy than are the McAuliffe backers, but there just doesn't seem to be enough of them to get Cuccinelli over the top."

The poll of 1,606 likely Virginia voters was taken from Oct. 29-Nov. 3 and had a margin of error of +/-2.5 percent.

Public Policy Polling (PPP), a firm with connections to prominent Democrats, released a similar poll on Sunday night which finds Sarvis less of a factor. McAuliffe leads the PPP poll with 50 percent followed by Cuccinelli with 43 percent and Sarvis taking only 4 percent.

The PPP poll of 870 likely Virginia voters was taken Nov. 2-3 and had a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percent.