The new Washington Post poll of the Virginia gubernatorial race finds Republican Bob McDonnell expanding his lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds, suggesting that attacks over McDonnell’s right-wing grad school thesis may have worn off or even backfired on Deeds.
The numbers: McDonnell 53%, Deeds 44%, with a ±3% margin of error. Two and a half weeks ago, when McDonnell was more intensely battling the thesis controversy, he had much narrower lead of only 51%-47%.
The poll also finds that Deeds has suffered from launching too many attacks: “Deeds, a state senator from western Virginia, is widely seen by voters as running a negative campaign, a finding that might indicate his aggressive efforts to exploit McDonnell’s 20-year-old graduate thesis are turning voters away.”
