On October 23, Quinnipiac University Polls released a new gubernatorial poll for Virginia. The results: McAuliffe 46%, Cuccinelli 39%, Sarvis 10%, write-in someone else 1%, undecided 4%.
The poll is interesting because it breaks down the results by age, race, party affiliation, sex, and income. 78% of the voters say they don’t know enough about Sarvis to have an opinion about him. The final debate, which excludes him, is October 24, although there is a 3-candidate forum on October 28. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
Once again, the poll shows that when Sarvis’s name is removed, the McAuliffe-Cuccinelli spread is practically unchanged.
(i.e., Sarvis is not “hurting Cuccinelli”)
I think that what’s happening here is that there are a lot of Democrats who refuse to support McAuliffe because of all his scandals, but they just can’t bring themselves to vote for a Republican. So they’ll vote for Sarvis, who doesn’t have all that abortion baggage that Cuccinelli does.