Republican challenger Mitt Romney and incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama are essentially tied in Virginia, 46% Obama to 45% Romney, in a YouGov poll of 743 likely voters statewide (recontacted from an initial September poll). The race has tightened by a point or two since September, when Obama had a marginal lead.
| In Virginia (Oct 4-11): |
|---|
Virginia is a fairly partisan state in its vote, at least on the Democratic side, as 93% of Democrats are sticking with Obama and 85% of Republicans are voting for Romney. |
Romney enjoys a large lead among likely voters who are Independents, 51% for Romney and 34% for Obama. |
Women favor Obama by 52%-40%, while men favor the challenger over the incumbent by a similar mirror-image margin, 51% Romney-40% Obama. |
Obama enjoys a solid 54%-38% advantage in the Beltway suburbs of DC, and also leads 53%-41% in the Northern Virginia suburbs that are further out from DC. Obama currently enjoys a marginal advantage in the traditional bellweather Tidewater region, Obama 47%-Romney 44%. The candidates are essentially tied in Richmond and the rest of the east, 46% Romney-45% Obama, and Romney easily carried central and western Virginia, 55% Romney-37% Obama |
The oldest likely voters age 65+ favor Romney by huge margin over Obama (61% Romney-31% Obama), and Baby Boomers strongly prefer Romney as well (52% Romney-40% Obama). Obama wins majorities from voters under age 45. |
Among likely voters who are Independents, Romney held a lead over Obama in September, and he has widened that lead since then. Romney leads by a 17-point margin among Independent likely voters now (51%-34%), up from Romney’s 8-point margin in September (46%-38%). |
| Net Change in Voter Intention (Likely Voters) |
|---|
| Total | Independents | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sept 7-14 | Oct 4-11 | Sept 7-14 | Oct 4-11 | |
Barack Obama | 48% | 46% | 38% | 34% |
Mitt Romney | 44% | 45% | 46% | 51% |
The race for the U.S. Senate continues to be a barn-burner, at 42% for former Republican Senator George Allen and 42% for former Democratic governor Tim Kaine. Both candidates claimed an equal 43% of the vote in September.
Voters in Virginia, when asked about the contest for the U.S. House in their Congressional district strongly favor Republicans, with 44% intending to vote for the Republican candidate for the House in their district and 38% for the Democrat. The poll was conducted online October 4-11, 2012.
Sampling method: Respondents were initially selected on September 7-14 from YouGov’s panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by age, gender, race, education, and region) was selected from the 2005–2007 American Community Study. Voter registration, turnout, religion, news interest, minor party identification, and non-placement on an ideology scale, were imputed from the 2008 Current Population Survey Registration and Voting supplement and the Pew Religion in American Life Survey. Matching respondents were selected from the YouGov panel, an opt-in Internet panel.
Respondents were recontacted on October 4-11 for the second wave of the YouGov poll. The percentage of likely voters who were successfully recontacted was 71.5%.
Weighting: The sample was weighted using propensity scores based on age, gender, race, education, news interest, voter registration, and non-placement on an ideology scale.
Number of respondents: 743 likely voters. Margin of error ±4.0% (adjusted for weighting).
Click here for September 7-14 results
Click here for October 4-11 results
