A big special election happening Tuesday is headed down to the wire, according to a new survey from Public Policy Polling (D): The West Virginia gubernatorial race, where Democrats are in a tight spot to hold on to an office in a state that has been trending to the Republicans.
The numbers: Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin 47%, Republican businessman Bill Maloney 46%. The survey of likely voters was conducted from September 30 to October 2, and has a ±3.2% margin of error.
In the previous PPP survey from a month ago, Tomblin led by 46%-40%.
“Bill Maloney’s biggest enemy at this point is time,” writes PPP president Dean Debnam. “With the way this race has been headed you have to think Maloney would win if he had another month. But since he only has another day Tomblin may be able to narrowly hold on.”
Tomblin succeeded to the office late last year, when Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin was elected to the U.S. Senate in a special election to succeed the late Dem Sen. Robert Byrd. (Under the state constitution, the office of governor is taken up by the state Senate President, who continues to hold his or her legislative office. However, Tomblin has acted exclusively as governor, without taking up legislative powers or collecting his pay for that office.)
The two candidates have nearly identical personal ratings. Tomblin’s approval rating as governor is 44%, to 33% disapproval. Meanwhile, Maloney’s personal favorable rating is 44%, to 32% unfavorable.
Also setting the race on edge are the mirror-image ratings of President Obama, the leader of the national Democrats, and those of Joe Manchin, who as former governor and freshman senator is effectively the leader of the West Virginia Democrats. Obama’s approval rating is 28%-63%, while Manchin’s is 61%-23%.
The pollster also looked ahead to the 2012 Senate race, when Manchin will run for a full term, finding that he would lead Maloney by 60%-29% — thus illustrating the extent to which West Virginia Dems have successfully separated their brand from the national party.
Which of the two candidates will those competing trends work out for tomorrow?
