The Race Is Now Neck & Neck

I mentioned a Washington Post blurb the other day that touched on an internal Republican poll that showed the race here in the 9th Congressional District to have devolved into a dead heat - 44% for Rick Boucher and 44% for Morgan Griffith.  But because there were no statistics to go along with that factoid (and because it was cited as a GOP poll), I didn't make much of it.

Now I can make much of it.

We've drawn even with those who like things here in Southwest Virginia just the way they are.

From SurveyUSA:

Republicans Make Their Move in Virginia's 9th District; GOP's Griffith Pulls Even with 15-Term Incumbent Democrat Boucher: A dramatic reversal of fortune in Virginia's 9th Congressional District, where Republican challenger Morgan Griffith appears to have awoken after 3 months of polling at 40% and today, 7 days until votes are counted, vaults into a tie with incumbent Democrat Rick Boucher, who had been sailing to a 16th term.

In a SurveyUSA polling conducted exclusively for WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, it's Griffith 47%, Boucher 46%, within the survey's theoretical margin of sampling error. Griffith's lead may or may not be statistically significant; the contest should be reported as even.

Among traditional midterm voters -- those who vote in most or all congressional elections -- Boucher is nominally ahead, by 3 to 5 points. But: among the group of voters who tell SurveyUSA they are uniquely motivated to vote in 2010, the Republican leads almost 2:1. The relative sizes of these groups will determine the winner. If the uniquely motivated 2010 voters walk-the-ballot-box walk, and don't just talk-the-pollster talk, the Republicans have a chance to snatch the seat. If the uniquely motivated voters aren't so motivated after all, Boucher keeps the seat.

Compared to 4 previous tracking polls, Independents have broken sharply Republican in the campaign's final week. The number of Republicans crossing over to vote for Boucher has steadily decreased, from 26% in July to 18% today. The number of higher-income voters voting for Griffith has steadily increased, from 43% in July to 49% today. Boucher's lead among women has evaporated from a once 23-point advantage. The older the electorate, the better Boucher's chances. [link]

Here's my take on all that:

1) That 3 to 5 percent edge in favor of Boucher among "traditional midterm voters" involves the elderly voter who goes to the polls every year out of civic duty and who has supported the Democrat since he or she was a kid.

And never discount the union vote, (especially the retired union vote), especially the closer to Dickenson and Russell Counties you get.

2) Those who are "uniquely motivated to vote in 2010" (and who have said they'll be voting for Griffith 2 to 1) have only one thing in mind - OBAMA. With everything that can be associated with the name.  And the deeper you get into coal country, the more Obama's cap-and-trade assault on the coal industry weighs as a factor.  (I'm reminded of the Roanoke Times's Mason Adams' observation yesterday in the "Blue Ridge Caucus" that young miners seem to be ready to jump the UMW ship and vote Republican while the older miners in the coalfields are still loyal to party and the union "bosses."

3) As I predicted a month ago, the "undecided" vote is breaking for Griffith in the last days of the campaign.  This has to do with (a) the name recognition problem that's finally righting itself, and (b) those uncommitted voters, as always happens, are now getting serious and paying attention.  And they're looking around at all the abandoned homes and factories and reading the papers.

4) The fact that Boucher's lead among women has evaporated from a once-astounding  23 point advantage has me baffled.  I'm inclined to suspect the validity of the poll.  A 23 point swing?  Did Boucher get caught with his pants down at a Cub Scout event and I missed it?  I don't know.  Consider me skeptical.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that women have grown accustomed to that awful goatee of Griffith's.

Or maybe women don't like their congresspersons partying like Hollywood movie stars in Vail, Colorado while their friends and neighbors are struggling to hang onto their jobs and homes back here in the 9th District any more than men do.  Who knows.  If SurveyUSA is to be believed, the Democrat now has only a 2 point lead among women with just days to go before Election Day.

5) Here's the most important set of statistics to emerge from the SurveyUSA study (which was conducted between the 21st and the 25th of October): The age of those polled, and the likelihood that they'll go and vote on November 2:

Those under the age of 50 are - by far - in support of Republican Morgan Griffith - 55% to 37% - with almost the reverse being true of those over 50 - 53% to 41% in favor of Boucher.

More important than that is the likelihood of those having opinions actually turning those opinions into votes.  The older voter  - the Boucher voter - is far more likely to turn out next Tuesday.  That ain't good.

Anyway, there are two competing "motivations" in play here.  The first involves those who will be voting because they always vote.  They'll be going for the Democrat in large numbers.  The second motivation (among the younger voters) is to stop the bleeding in this country - the motivation to change things.  That's the Griffith camp.

Are the numbers of those who seek change motivated enough to offset the elderly vote by getting off their butts and showing up at their neighborhood polling place next Tuesday?

We're about to find out.

- - -

Remember my weblog post from earlier this month in which I openly speculated that independent challenger Jeremiah Heaton may have had some ulterior motive for being in the race and attacking only the challenger, Morgan Griffith, giving the incumbent Rick Boucher a complete pass?

Remember "I Smell a Rat"?

Well, read the following and see what you think motivates Mr. Heaton's continued dalliance with the race.  From Mason Adams's "9th District candidates clash in televised debate" in this morning's Roanoke Times:

The exchanges likely to leave the strongest impression on viewers, however, came in the debate's second half, when Heaton launched a series of sharply worded attacks at Griffith. He criticized the Salem attorney's choice of legal clients, suggested his decision to marry in a cemetery was strange and called him a "carpetbagger" for running in the 9th District while living just outside it.

"I knew when I agreed to debate with [both of] them it was probably going to be two on one," Griffith said afterward. "It's a little disingenuous to have one candidate [Heaton] who's getting only four percent do all the hits, and have the other candidate be the good cop. It was good cop, bad cop tonight."

Boucher said that both he and Heaton live in Damascus and have met before to discuss the impact of Heaton's general store on the town's tourism economy.

But "we've never discussed this race," Boucher said. "That's just sheer nonsense."

Heaton acknowledged that Boucher's wife has played music in his store three times but said he's running just as hard against Boucher as he is Griffith. During the debate, Heaton assailed both Boucher and Griffith as "career politicians" who have sold out for special-interest money.

Heaton said he wasn't looking to help Boucher, but attacked Griffith for a different reason: "Morgan Griffith took my opportunity to beat Rick Boucher away from me by rolling in here with all this special-interest money and running in a congressional district where he does not live. I don't care if his feelings are hurt."

Most of the debate was given over to discussion of policy, however.

See the results of the SurveyUSA poll again. Griffith is up by 1 point. Heaton has five.

It certainly seems to me that if the Republican eventually loses by less than the number of votes that the independent captures, Heaton's plan to derail the Griffith candidacy and to reelect Rick Boucher will have been successful.

I hope Heaton and Boucher are happy with the result.

Smell? No. This now has the stench of rotting flesh.

* Click on the image to enlarge it.